This berry plant has a lot of gall

Thimbleberries are good to eat

Almost every plant has a gall on its stem

Inside the galls are the larvae of a parasitic wasp

One of the most numerous and conspicuous plants in the bush around here is the Thimbleberry or Rubus parviflorus. It produces enormous maple-shaped leaves, pretty white flowers in the spring and now, in late-summer, tasty red berries.
There are only a few of the raspberry-sized berries on each plant but they are extremely easy to pick since they are two-to-three feet off the ground.
Just as noticeable as the thimbleberries, however, are the abnormal growths on the plant stems. These bulbous galls often resemble a fruit themselves but in fact they are the result of parasitic wasps.
Diastrophus kincaidii wasps lay their eggs in the stems and when the larvae hatch they feed on the starchy tissue. The plant reacts by building the stem around the grubs thus forming the gall.
Just about every thimbleberry plant here in Nolalu has at least one gall and some have several.
I haven't seen it but there is yet another parasitic wasp that lays its eggs inside the larvae of the first wasp. The wonders of the bug world!
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Save money and the world at the same time

Solar flashlight is extremely bright and never, ever, needs batteries

It might not be obvious but this blog posting goes part and parcel with the last two. Those others dealt with lake trout coming back in Red Lake and an abundance of deer in Nolalu and other places in Northwestern Ontario. What is the connection? Climate change.
Lake trout may have quit spawning successfully in Red Lake for nearly two decades because the water was simply too warm in the fall. During the 17 years of lake trout study and stocking by the MNRF and assisted by Brenda and I and our staff at Bow Narrows Camp two facts came to light, both involving temperature. Several times during that period the lake temperature was above the 12 C maximum needed for spawning. The result was most of the female trout never came to the spawning beds. If the temperature isn't 12 C or colder in the first two weeks of October, spawning success will be near-zero. The lake temperature must align with the photoperiod.
The other fact was the discovery of manganese in the sediment of the spawning shoals. Where did it come from? The rock itself. There is naturally occurring manganese in the bedrock of the spawning shoals. Yet, lake trout have been spawning there successfully for probably 10,000 years. Why would it be a problem now? Manganese is inert at low temperatures and becomes reactive at higher ones.  A very real possibility is that the warmer fall temperatures are making the manganese kill the trout eggs which are one of the most sensitive things in nature.
We don't have the warm temperatures every fall but these warm years are becoming more and more frequent. For a lake trout population that was already stressed to the limit by overharvesting, it could have pushed them over the brink. Fortunately, the MNRF's stocking program has saved the day and trout are once again spawning in other places besides Pipestone Bay.
The deer example is more obvious. Warm winters and a lack of deep snowfall, all part of climate change, has seen a population explosion for this species. Because of their numbers they are eradicating moose and changing the vegetation on the landscape.
So now the flashlight. It's a dandy. I wrote about getting it a couple of years ago. I have used it every night since and haven't bought a single battery or plugged it in to charge even once. I just set it in the window and the sun does it for free. It lasts something like 22 hours on a single day's charge. And it is incredibly bright. If you are thinking a solar flashlight isn't going to hold a candle to today's super-flashlights, you haven't been paying attention. Solar energy has taken a quantum leap in recent years.
And the cost of solar equipment has plunged as the entire world jumps on the bandwagon and mass production lowers the cost of everything.
There are still tons of things to invent and manufacture, all using solar. Here's one that came to my attention lately. A person with a canoe that he powers with a 12-volt electric trolling motor and battery told me he tried plugging the motor directly into two solar panels that he carried amidships. With absolutely no battery connected his motor powered up to about 60 per cent of top speed. Now just imagine if the entire canoe -- or boat -- was made out of photovoltaic cells.
The world is converting from the internal combustion engine to electric energy at warp speed. And the proportion of that energy created by solar and wind is increasing exponentially. Who is the largest automaker in the U.S.? GM? Toyota? Honda?  Actually, it is Tesla, the maker of affordable electric cars.
The reality of never spending a nickel at a gas station again is closer than most of us realize. In fact, we could all make it a reality right now. Our cars can be charged from solar panels on the roof of our houses and on the parking garages at work. Or from the utility. That takes care of commuting and just about all of our normal daily driving. For long trips we need to build a network of recharging stations. It's already happening in California and the only thing stopping it everywhere else is a lack of political and business leadership.
Let's get at it. Not doing it is like clinging to the horse-and-buggy a hundred years ago. And the money we save will be our own as will the planet.


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Small lake trout caught again in Red Lake

Seventeen-inch laker caught and released by Jerime Williams

Anglers are catching little lake trout in Red Lake and that is spectacular news!
That statement might seem confusing to people who are not familiar with the lake trout situation in Red Lake. After all, don't you want to always catch big lake trout?
No. No you don't. During the 1980s and '90s Red Lake gained the reputation of having some of the largest lake trout anywhere. They were plentiful and easy to catch and as a result there was a colossal over-harvest. The curious thing was no one caught little lakers. Around the year 2000 studies showed there just weren't any. It was also found that the few remaining mature trout, almost all located in Pipestone Bay, were not successfully reproducing although they were found to be perfectly healthy.
This began a 17-year long program by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry to renew the trout population and bring back the fishery. Hundreds of volunteers as well as camps and businesses have joined in. About a million fingerlings reared from Red Lake's own wild trout have been released in the lake. The planted fish can be identified by a missing fin. The MNRF clips a different fin each year.
Meanwhile naturally-spawned fish are showing up in anglers' catches as well. Bow Narrows angler Jerime Williams holds one in the photo up top. It has all its fins.
All lake trout must be released on Red Lake while this species rebuilds. Regulations also require anglers to only use lures with single barbless hooks and not to use any bait, alive or dead.

Brother Jason with a hefty northern pike

Bald eagle is locked onto a prey item. Jason and Jerime Williams photos

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Experiment begins on trees and deer

I have begun to fence-off areas from deer to give some trees a chance to grow beyond the deer's reach and appetites.
The photo above is my first attempt. I have used commercial seven-foot deer fencing to enclose a group of red maples that have sprouted up this summer. In the foreground is a maple that is already too large for the deer to kill by browsing.
My hope is that by blocking-off relatively small areas the deer will choose just to go around and look for easier pickings.
I'm going to try something similar in other spots to allow young white cedar and white pine to take root. Right now the deer are eradicating all these species simply by eating all of the young saplings.
There is a browse line though our bush showing the height deer can reach during their mostly-winter foraging. There are mature trees but no young ones.
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Those times when you 'discover' the obvious

Beaked hazel

While deer hunting in the Nolalu area many years ago I made an amazing discovery. I was sitting on a stump waiting for a deer to come walking along when I casually peered into the hollow stump next to me. It was absolutely filled with hazelnuts! It was the first time I had ever seen a nut in Northwestern Ontario. Where did they come from?
Obviously, this was a squirrel cache but where were the nut trees, I wondered? I looked all around the spot and could only see the usual Boreal Forest trees such as birch, poplar and spruce. But there were a lot of shrubs in the area. These had already lost their leaves for the season. Eventually the idea that the nuts must have come from the shrubs permeated my thick skull.
I didn't have the nature reference books in those days that I do now but somewhere I finally found that Beaked Hazel is a common shrub in the Boreal Forest. The next fall I had my eye out for hazel bushes with their little striped trunks so I could gather some hazelnuts for myself. I found the bushes around all the clearings and fields on our property but there wasn't a single nut anywhere.
Then I noticed they also grew right along the lakeshore at camp in Red Lake and finally saw the nuts in the making in the spring. By mid-summer, however, they were gone. I never saw what took them but I knew from the hollow stump experience that red squirrels were the likely culprits.
Now here in Nolalu I am getting to see the pickers in action. The nuts are still in their beaked husks and squirrels are working overtime hauling them away. They are joined in the harvest by blue jays. Remember the blog about blue jays spreading oaks northward by flying away with their acorns. Well, they do the same thing with hazelnuts. I would expect chipmunks like hazelnuts as well.
It is mind-boggling that a person could live his entire life here and never find a hazelnut, just because wild animals always get them first.
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Nothing is as satisfying as a walk in the woods

My self-portrait

Everyday, it seems, there is another story in the media about the health benefits from walking in the woods. It lowers your blood pressure; it relieves stress, etc.
I have no way of quantifying my own experience from walking in the woods (or bush as we call it here) but I know there is nothing like it. I'm especially lucky in that we live on a large tract of forested land. Ten steps out the backdoor and I'm surrounded by trees.
In addition to the therapeutic effects of woods walking, I find there are doubly more rewards when you make and maintain your own trails as I do. Every time I cut up a fallen tree or mow the weeds on my trails I get a great feeling of accomplishment. There is also just the workout that comes from chainsawing, moving log sections, cutting overhanging limbs with a brush axe and so forth.
One of my trail-making goals is to make a corduroy roadbed through a couple of swampy sections that can turn me back in wet weather. I'll be sure to post it here when I do.
I always do my walking with a camera in my pocket and an eye peeled for new wildflowers. I find a new one on just about every trip. There are also mushrooms, birds and animals, neat light-effects from the tree leaves and other things to photograph.
Have you ever heard of walking meditation? Check it out. To me meditation is simply being totally aware of the moment. So when I'm practising walking mediation, I try to be aware of the sensation of the ground beneath my feet, the smells of the vegetation, sounds of the birds and wind -- things like that -- as well as noticing all the plant and animal life. Worries and troublesome thoughts vanish. There's just no room for them.

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Newly mowed trail

Are these fish northern pike, muskies or hybrids?

Mike Boyer with fish that has no spots

Troy Bechtel's fish has a different pattern on its tail compared to body

Two Bow Narrows anglers were perplexed with the fish they caught at camp this summer. In the top photo Mike Boyer holds a fish that, I believe, his wife Lonnie caught. Could it be the "clear" pattern shown by some muskies?
In the lower photo Troy Bechtel holds a fish that has two distinctly different patterns, small spots on its head and sides and large chains on its tail.
What gives?
Before I go any further, let's note the most certain way to determine if a fish is a northern pike or a musky. Count the pores on the underside of its jaw. Northern pike have five. Musky have more than five, from six to nine.
So the next time you are wondering if that unusual fish is a musky, turn it over and count the jaw pores.
Muskies have several skin patterns, as do northern pike, including "clear" versions for both. So really, the pore count is critical.
Troy's fish is bizarre. I've never seen a fish that had two patterns at once.
We sent Troy's photo first to Red Lake Ministry of Natural Resources and Forests biologist Jenn Neilson who forwarded it to pike-musky expert John Casselman.

"By the colour pattern on the caudal area and on the cheek, I would say that this fish is a hybrid pike-muskellunge cross. Why the pattern appears more distinct on the caudal peduncle is a mystery to me. But in hybrids, the colour pattern can be quite strange and grotesque, so maybe this is part of the abnormal coloration response," he wrote back.

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Framable still life photographs abound

Click on this to see larger photo

I swear you could walk into the forest, close your eyes, point your camera at the ground and come up with a glorious photo that would look great framed on the wall of your home. It doesn't need to be a closeup of a flower. Just the mosaic of plants and patterns of leaves is all it takes.
It is also a great way to study plants. Take a well-focused shot now and next winter when it is too cold to go outside, dig it out and see if you can identify all the plants in view.
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Same with this one