Incredible, edible cattails

A common sight in any shallow water around the Kootenai Valley is stands of cattails. They line irrigation ditches, lake-shores, swamps and the majority of wetlands not more than four feet deep. Cattails play an important part in the wetland ecosystem in regards to both food and shelter. 

Cattails in the Kootenai Valley of Idaho

During the summer and even mild winters, red-winged blackbirds can be seen perched on cattail stems singing their familiar chorus. Both red-winged and yellow-headed blackbirds build nests in the dense stands of cattails, along with marsh wrens, Canada geese and other waterfowl. In early summer, families of Canada geese with downy goslings weave in and out of the cattail stands looking for food, particularly the numerous insects that inhabit the stands. Frogs and salamanders lay eggs on the water’s surface between the cattails while below the water’s surface, fish hide and lay eggs among the roots and rhizomes.

A red-winged blackbird sings from its perch on a cattail stem

Rhizomes are the reason cattails grow in dense stands. A rhizome is an underground (or underwater) stem of a plant that grows roots downward and shoots upward. Other plants that grow via rhizomes include aspen, ginger, iris and some orchids. Like aspen, an entire acre of cattails may only contain a few individual plants. In well-established stands, cattails prevent over-population by emitting a toxin that will prevent germination of their own species. Cattails mainly reproduce by laterally expanding their rhizomes but also by fruit. 

Atop the long cattail stem is a brown, hot-dog-shaped flower that contains densely packed cattail fruit. Most of the flower is composed of white cattail “fluff” that carries the small fruit (called nutlets) away in the wind. The nutlets are only two millimeters in length but are an important food source for many insects. The “fluff” isn’t wasted either--birds will collect it in the spring to line their nests. 

A cattail flower starting to burst open

One animal that utilizes cattails for both food and shelter is the muskrat. Muskrats eat the rhizomes and stalks. They use the leaves to build their houses which in turn provides resting and nesting sites for many water birds. Through the maze of cattails other wildlife seeks cover, such as white-tailed deer, turkeys, raccoons and hundreds of insects. 

Cattails are an all-you-can-eat buffet for many species of wildlife including people. People can eat the starchy roots, young shoots, young flowering spikes and the pollen. The developing male and female flower spikes can be eaten like corn on the cob while the pollen can be collected later in the summer and used as a flour substitute in recipes such as cattail pancakes. Flour can also be made from the rhizomes. 

Native Americans used the cattail leaves to weave baskets, chair seats and mats. In large quantities, the white “fluff” can be used for insulation in pillows, diapers and clothing. 

As one of the most common wetland plants in the temperate and tropical regions of the world (except Australia and South America), the cattail is truly an incredible, edible plant. 

Note: Published in the Bonners Ferry Herald on September 20, 2012. 

Look for spruce grouse on gravel roads this autumn

A frenzy of flapping bursts from the shrubs no more than 10 feet away, quickening my heartbeat until I realize it’s only a spruce grouse. After landing in a nearby tree, I notice the bright red eye comb of the male. The female is harder to distinguish from other female grouse species because of the overall mottled brown coloration. 

The spruce grouse’s cryptic color makes it seemingly impossible to see until you are practically stepping on it and then sometimes it won’t even fly away. Spruce grouse can often be approached extremely close, giving them the name of “fool’s hen” for not flying away and yet they amazingly survive. They supposedly fly away sooner when approached by predators other than people and just as their explosive take-off startles us, it can startle a predator long enough for the grouse to escape to safety. Predators include coyotes, great horned owls, martens, goshawks, fishers, lynx, red-tailed hawks, fox and people. 

True to the name "fool's hen", this female didn't fly off immediately

Spruce grouse can be easy targets for hunters in the fall when they frequent roads, streams and lakesides to ingest small pebbles. The pebbles help grind food in their gizzard, particularly when they switch from their summer diet of berries, leaves, seeds and fungi to their winter diet of fibrous conifer needles. 

During the winter, they solely survive on conifer needles, mainly spruce, pine, fir and larch. Their beak is specially adapted to snip off needles which are toxic and bitter to most animals because of chemicals. However, a spruce grouse’s digestive system can handle the chemicals and actually expands in size and length during the winter so that the grouse can digest the larger amount of food needed to survive the long, cold winter nights. The digestive tract grows enough to store up to ten percent of the grouse’s body weight in food. That is like a 150-pound person eating 15 pounds of food before bed every night. 

A male spruce grouse struts around displaying to nearby females in the late winter

Spruce grouse will fly out of their territory to find pebbles to aid in the digestion of all those conifer needles. Otherwise, they typically stay within their home range of 10 to 25 acres. Unlike blue grouse that group into large multi-family flocks in autumn and winter, spruce grouse tend to be less social. Females and juvenile grouse will form small flocks in winter, but the males are typically alone. The only time male spruce grouse congregate is during autumn when they join a hen and brood before going their own way for winter. 

During spring, the males will attract females to mate, but then leave the incubating and rearing to the female. Unlike the adult’s diet of leaves and berries in the summer, spruce grouse chicks will mainly eat insects during their first summer. Then in autumn, conifer needles become the mainstay of their diet. 

Despite a stable food source of conifer needles, spruce grouse can be everywhere in a patch of woods one year and the next year hardly one can be found. The reason for the periodic crashes is unknown. Abundant or not, it only takes one spruce grouse to make your heart jump when it bursts from the nearby brush. 

Note: Published in the Bonners Ferry Herald on September 13, 2012.

Brooks Range not on the map until 1911

Two-hundred miles of flying and we only crossed one road 15 minutes into the flight. The rest of the flight was ridge after ridge of mountains in the northernmost mountain range in the United States--the Brooks Range. Every mountain range is unique and the Brooks Range is no exception. 

Central Brooks Range

Located entirely north of the Arctic Circle in the northern third of Alaska, the Brooks Range spans 700 miles from the west coast along the Bering Sea into Canada’s Yukon Territory. The Brooks Range is considered the northernmost reach of the Rocky Mountains.

Over those 700 miles east to west, only one road crosses the range at Atigun Pass--the Dalton Highway (also known as the Haul Road). In comparison, the Cascade Range is also 700 miles long but dozens of highways and Forest Service roads bisect the range. There is literally only one road that crosses the Brooks Range. The only other means of transportation across the mountains are airplanes, boats, snow-machines, dogsleds and by foot. 

The large swath of roadless mountains is primarily due to the protection of the range by Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Noatak National Preserve. 

Frigid Crags and Boreal Mountain (pictured above) form the "Gates of the Arctic"

On the aforementioned flight to Peters and Schrader Lakes from Bettles, the extensive width of the range was evident. At 150 miles wide, the Brooks Range is almost double the width of the Cascade Range (80 miles). 

Similar to the transition in the Cascade Range from coastal forest to the dry Columbia Basin, the Brooks Range transitions from boreal forest on the south side to arctic tundra on the north side. The transition zone marks the northern extent of the tree line with only a few trees (mainly Balsam poplar) crossing over the Continental Divide. The southern slopes are also the northern limit of black spruce and quaking aspen.

For being in the Arctic, the Brooks Range has surprisingly few glaciers. Even though the mountains may be covered in snow from September to June, the climate is too arid to support glacial growth. Additionally, the sun never sets for 30 days in the summer. However, during the last ice age large valley glaciers carved extensive river valleys, serrated peaks, cirques and gigantic lakes. 

Summit Lake just north of the Continental Divide

The remoteness of the entire range eluded mapmakers for decades. When the United States purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, the now-named Brooks Range was a blank spot on the map. Not until the 1880’s and 1890’s did mapping begin by Navy expeditions, the Revenue Marine Service (now the Coast Guard) and gold prospectors. The entire Brooks Range was completely mapped by 1911 but wasn’t named until 1925 (after Alfred Brooks, chief USGS geologist for Alaska from 1903 to 1924). 

Even one-hundred years after it was mapped, there is still debate on the highest peak. Some sources claim Mount Chamberlin to be the highest peak at 9020 feet while others claim Mount Isto to be the highest at 9060 feet. One thing is for certain, the Brooks Range is like no other. 

Mount Doonerak and the North Fork of the Koyukuk River

Note: Published in the Bonners Ferry Herald on September 6, 2012. 

Lichens: Like’em or leave’em

I’ve noticed lichens before on rocks, trees and high alpine ridges before but didn’t look closely at them until recently. Peter Nelson, a lichenologist who studied lichens in Gates of the Arctic National Park this summer, hosted a lichen walk one evening in Bettles, Alaska and enthusiastically shared his knowledge of lichens, rattling off latin names without skipping a beat and pointing out lichens easily missed. 

Foliose lichen

Lichens are in a category by themselves. They are not like trees, mosses or even mushrooms. Lichens are a combination of fungi and algae on a microscopic level--not a fungus with alga growing on the outside. Separately, the fungus and alga would look completely different than the form created when they grow together as a lichen. The fungus isn’t the typical cap and gill mushroom one might first think of, but instead a type of cup fungus.

Basically, the fungus is the house in which the alga creates food. Alga photosynthesize and provide the fungus with carbohydrates, vitamins and proteins. In return, the fungus shelters the alga and protects it from the sun and predators. The physical manifestation of this relationship is the lichen. 

Unlike other plants, lichens do not derive any nutrition from the substrate on which they grow, such as soil or tree bark. They are a completely self-contained because the algae creates all the food the fungi needs. That is why lichens can grow on rocks. 

Crustose lichen growing on rocks

Lichens will actually be one of the first species to colonize an area, such as after a glacier retreats or after a fire, because they don’t rely on anything outside of themselves to grow (besides sunlight, water and air for photosynthesis). Their growth on gravestones has allowed scientists to calculate their rate of growth because the earliest date of growth is written in stone. This growth rate can then be used to determine when the earliest time a glacier could have retreated from an area or to date an archeological site. 

Even though lichens grow relatively slowly, they can survive thousands of years if left undisturbed. Amazingly, lichens can completely dry out and not die. With the next rain, dew or snow melt they will rehydrate and keep growing. 

On alpine ridges, lichens commonly grow on the ground and on rocks

This dryness is evident when walking on a high alpine ridge as they crunch underfoot. This breaks up the lichen, but all is not lost--each of the fragments will grow into a new lichen. And if the powdery substance found on those crushed lichens sticks to your boot for a few steps or a few miles, you will help the lichen spread. That powdery substance is composed of tiny chunks of fungi/algae combinations ready to colonize a new area. The powder will also stick in the hooves of several of the animals that eat it, such as caribou, deer, elk, pronghorn antelope and Dall sheep. Lichen powder can also be spread when flying squirrels and birds utilize pieces of lichens for nesting material. 

The different fungi and algae combinations produce the different lichens. Even without knowing the names, you’ll be able to differentiate the three main groups of lichens--foliose (leaf-like), fruticose (shrub-like) and crustose (paint- or stain-like). Rocks are often dotted with different colored crustose lichens. The green or black ‘old man’s beard’ dangling from old tree branches is a fruticose lichen. Foliose lichen is often found on the ground and tree bark. 

Foliose and fruticose lichens

Some areas are extremely lichen-rich, such as the location I went to on the lichen walk. Within a one square-foot area, we counted 13 different lichens that included some from each lichen group, which I thought was an impressive amount of diversity for a small area in the arctic. As Peter was eagerly rambling off the different names of the lichens, his enthusiasm sparked a new interest that will have me down on my hands and knees examining lichens a little more closely. 

A diverse array of lichens can grow in a small area

Note: Published in the Bonners Ferry Herald on August 30, 2012. 

Autumn arrives early in the Arctic

I walked towards the water-filled gravel pit early one morning last week, a sound filled the air that I hadn’t heard since spring--the honking of Canada geese. Canada geese don’t spend the summer in Bettles, Alaska, they only pass through on their way to the North Slope in the spring and then again in the fall on their way south. This only means one thing--autumn is here.

Even though it seems early I shouldn’t be surprised, signs of autumn are everywhere. The fireweed finished blooming earlier than I could remember and a fair number of seed pods have already burst open with fluffy seeds. 

Seed pods on the fireweed are already opening 

Two weeks ago a few random willow and aspen leaves started turning yellow but I dismissed it since every year a few leaves turn before all the others. Once more leaves starting turning and even falling off, I reckoned that autumn had come early. Every day I see more yellow and orange leaves that I didn’t notice the day before. 

Leaves beginning to turn color on the banks of the Koyukuk River in Bettles, Alaska

Even the blueberry brush is turning red. The rainy summer kept the blueberry season short with a meager crop. Those picking blueberries were lucky to find them before the birds and bears devoured them all. 

With the early start on fall, the low-bush cranberries are ready and they seem to be plentiful this year. They are best after a hard frost and the closest we’ve been is 31 degrees Fahrenheit on August 9. Even before a frost, they are still quite tasty--even for the bears. I came across a pile of fresh pink bear scat still containing whole cranberries the other evening. They too are preparing for fall. 

Low-bush cranberries among reindeer lichen

With all the recent rains, mushrooms are poking out of the ground like jack-in-the-boxes. They pop up one day and the next day they are gone--harvested by squirrels. The squirrels waste no time in packing them off and caching them for winter. 

Another sign of fall is the arrival of the sandhill cranes headed south. A group of three starting hanging around after the first Canada geese arrived. Like the geese, they migrate through in the spring and fall. Now every morning, the sound of sandhill cranes and flocks of geese congregating on the airport fill the crisp morning air.

Autumn in the boreal forest 

Along with that cool, crisp morning air comes a welcomed smell of fall--wood smoke. As the smoke rises from the chimneys, I can’t help to think of the colder, snowier months ahead and making sure the woodshed is full come November. 

While it can snow any month of the year in the Arctic, the first snow that sticks truly signals that summer is over. While it did snow high in the mountains earlier this month, it wasn’t visible from Bettles. Once the first snow blankets the peaks of the Brooks Range, summer is definitely over and winter is only a few weeks away. 

Autumn is a short season in the Arctic, sandwiched between summer and winter. It usually goes fast and before long all the leaves will litter the ground, the snow line will have crept down the mountains into Bettles, and all the cranes and geese will be well on their way to warmer wintering grounds. 

Note: Published in the Bonners Ferry Herald on August 23, 2012. 

Pondering the puzzle bark of the ponderosa pine

One of the first conifers I learned to identify after moving to Boundary County was the majestic ponderosa pine, mainly because of the bark. I had never seen a tree with such unique bark. The first time I found a ponderosa pine, I spent quite a bit of time flaking off the puzzle-shaped pieces of bark with a pocket knife and seeing what different patterns and shades of orange were revealed. 

The orange-colored bark of older ponderosa pine brightens up the woods on a wintery day 

I later learned that only the older ponderosa pine had the characteristic orange-colored bark while the younger trees had dark brown to black bark, with a young tree being less than 100 to 120 years of age. Another difference between young and old ponderosa lies within the tree. Young ponderosa, called bull pine, have coarse, knotty wood while old ponderosa, called western yellow pine, have clear, even-grained wood. Ponderosa pine are also called yellow pine, rock pine, yellow bellies and P-pine.

No matter what ponderosa pine are called, there is no other type of forest like a ponderosa pine forest. The openness of a ponderosa pine stand creates a park-like setting, except the ground is littered with long ponderosa pine needles and pinecones instead of grass. Ponderosa pines have long (5 to 8 inch) needles in bundles of three and egg-shaped cones armed with sharp prickles on the end of each cone scale. 

Long needles of the ponderosa pine 

I tend to gravitate towards open ponderosa pine ridges because of their openness and the ability to see farther, especially while looking for shed antlers. These open stands are often found on dry, south-facing slopes or ridges because they are able to grow in drier soils. The ability to survive on less than 12 inches of annual precipitation enables the ponderosa pine to extend from British Columbia to Mexico and east of the Cascade crest into the Black Hills of South Dakota. On road trips through the Southwest US, I’ve been surprised to find ponderosa pine stands on high plateaus of northern Arizona and red-rock valleys in Utah. The open stands remind me of home, especially on hot summer days when they smell like parched earth. 

Open stands of ponderosa pine create a park-like setting

Ponderosa pine are able to thrive in the drier areas because of their extensive taproots that penetrate deep into ground to access water. Studies have found that a three-inch tall, year-old tree can develop a taproot nearly two feet long, while a four-year-old tree that averages a foot in height can have a taproot nearly five feet long. Now imagine how deep the taproot on a 120 foot high ponderosa pine penetrates the earth. 

Ponderosa pine need an extensive root system to supply moisture to the long tufts of needles and to support the massive trunks that old trees can produce. When a ponderosa pine attains an age of 400 to 500 years of age, it can be upwards of four to five feet in diameter and over 120 feet high. The largest ponderosa pine in Idaho is six feet in diameter and 182 feet tall while the largest ponderosa pine in the country is seven-and-a-half feet in diameter and 240 feet tall.

Ponderosa trees this big were considered ‘old’ when Lewis and Clark first described them on their expedition in 1804. Shortly after, botanical explorer David Douglas named these majestic trees ponderosa pine because of their great size. I wonder if when they first discovered the tree they too were fascinated by the puzzle-shaped pieces of bark? 

Note: Published in the Bonners Ferry Herald on August 16, 2012. 

How can a weed smell so sweet?

Do you remember the first time you smelled the pleasant aroma of alpine fir, labrador tea or cottonwood sap? I won’t forgot the first time I smelled crushed alpine fir needles along the Clifty Mountain trail. Certain smells trigger memories and I’m amazed at what smells can trigger childhood memories, like campfire smoke and pineapple weed--yes, pineapple weed. 

Pineapple weed is the common name for that hardy plant that often grows in gravel driveways and smells like sweet pineapple when crushed. Walk on or mow over a patch of pineapple weed and the air is filled with a pineapple-like aroma. How can a weed smell so sweet? 

The flower heads are composed of tiny, densely packed flowers that smell like pineapple when crushed

Typically less than a foot tall, the fern-like leaves give way to egg-shaped, yellow-green heads that have a rough resemblance to pineapple. However, the common name is derived from the pineapple-like smell emitted when the flower heads or leaves are crushed. Pineapple weed is also known by the less descriptive name of disc mayweed. 

Prior to flowering, pineapple weed can be confused with mayweed chamomile because they look almost identical but mayweed chamomile doesn’t smell sweet like pineapple weed when crushed. Upon flowering, mayweed chamomile can be differentiated because it has white petals around the yellow-green flower heads. 

Pineapple weed is a hardy plant, occupying the poorest, most compact soils of gravel driveways, roadsides and other disturbed areas. Pineapple weed seems to grow where other plants don’t, minimizing competition. It can be a nuisance in fields, gardens and pastures. The tiny (one to two millimeter) seed created by each flower head easily sticks into tire treads and rubber soles of shoes that transport it to new destinations. I’ve found pineapple weed in my driveway in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, my hometown in Minnesota and in Bettles, Alaska--a wide range of conditions to thrive in. 

Pineapple weed thrives in the poorest soils, especially gravel driveways

Pineapple weed is believed to be native to the Pacific Northwest or brought to the Pacific Northwest by people who migrated from northeast Asia prior to European settlement of North America. During their exploration, Lewis and Clark didn’t find specimens of pineapple weed until they were camped at Camp Chopunnish in Idaho County, Idaho on June 9, 1806. Now, pineapple weed grows in every state except Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Hawaii and is found across most of Canada. Pineapple weed even grows in Greenland. 

With little competition in gravel driveways, the pineapple weed’s fibrous roots can spread out and absorb the little moisture that falls on driveways in Arizona or the inundating spring rains of north Idaho. They flower early, often as early as May in northern regions, and continue into September. 

Just as the aroma of wood smoke coming from a campfire reminds me of childhood camping trips, the smell of pineapple weed reminds me of picking flower heads from the gravel outside my parent’s barn as a kid and inhaling the wonderful, sweet smell of pineapple on a hot, summer afternoon. 

Note: Published in the Bonners Ferry Herald on August 9, 2012. 

White-tailed deer a far ranging species

Grazing in fields in early morning, seeking shelter in the woods during mid-day, browsing in city parks in the evening and crossing highways at night, the signature white tail of the white-tailed deer is well known. From the fields of the Kootenai Valley to the oak forests of the Appalachian Mountains, the white-tailed deer seems to be everywhere. They thrive in every state except Alaska, Hawaii, California, Utah, and Nevada. They range northward into all the Canadian provinces except Newfoundland, Labrador and Prince Edward Island, and even inhabit the southern reaches of the Yukon and Northwest Territories. They range southward into Mexico, Central America and South America. 

White-tailed doe and fawn on edge of canola field

The hardwood forests of Indiana are vastly different from the forests of northern British Columbia but the adaptability of the white-tailed deer allows it to survive in both. The white-tailed deer is one of the few mammals that occupies such a wide range of latitudes and diverse habitats--mainly because they are opportunistic feeders. They feed on agricultural crops, grasses, shrubs, fruit, berries, apples, acorns and mushrooms. 

Agricultural fields are a bed and breakfast to white-tailed deer--breakfast being the crop of choice and bed being the vegetative cover along field edges. A nearby irrigation ditch makes it complete. White-tailed deer followed the advancement of agriculture across the continent and expanded its range in the process. What once was prairie filled with unpalatable grasses became a buffet of lush green crops. 

White-tailed deer in the Kootenai Valley

Logging, often associated with clearing fields, also enabled the expansion of their range. Old-growth forest doesn’t provide much forage within reach of deer whereas early successional habitats created by harvesting, thinning and burning provide ample fresh growth at ground level for several decades. 

Logging and agriculture also create boundaries between two vegetative types (such as a field and forest), which attracts white-tailed deer because of the vegetative diversity and availability of cover. Likewise, woodlands near cities provide the cover deer need to sleep along with easy access to a wide array of gardens, ornamental shrubs and fruit trees for food. 

Fields near forests offer food with nearby cover

Not only are white-tailed deer adaptable in what they eat and where they live but also in their behavior. Depending on the habitat, group size and migration can vary, such as smaller herds occupying forested habitats. Some white-tailed deer migrate between fawning areas and wintering ranges, while others do not. 

The most adaptable of the white-tailed deer are the yearling bucks--they are the pioneers of the species. Every year 40 to 50 percent of the yearling bucks leave the herd around November--not because of population density or availability of food but because of hormonal changes associated with the rut. 

White-tailed bucks in vegetative cover at a field's edge

If yearling bucks wander into new habitat, a viable population won’t be established until young does join them. Unlike yearling bucks, young does won’t leave the herd until it overpopulates the area. Therefore, new habitats won’t show population growth until nearby populations are on the upswing. 

The overabundance of white-tailed deer in an area is one of the most challenging problems facing wildlife managers, as well as gardeners, farmers, fruit tree owners, and vehicle drivers because they seem to be everywhere. 

Note: Published in the Bonners Ferry Herald on August 2, 2012.