June is a Magical Month

The forests rustle and reverberate with abundant life. The heat and humidity can be oppressive, but cool mornings are a wonderful time to venture into the deep green forest where even dense shade seems to shine. Exploring is even more exciting when you have a mission. 

Sugar maple trees arch into a cathedral ceiling overhead where our small group gathers. The leaves filter sunshine into sylvan shine. Although trilliums, spring beauties, bellworts, and wild leeks bloomed here just a month ago, the shade chased them back underground. Now their energy bides time in roots, rhizomes, and tubers until next year. A carpet of ankle-high sugar maple saplings covers the ground instead. They bide their time differently. Once a sugar maple seed sprouts in the thick duff on the forest floor, it can wait there in the stifling shade, growing imperceptibly for decades. When even a single big tree comes crashing to the ground, the saplings race toward the shining gap in the canopy, each trying to claim a spot in the Sun. The patient of young sugar maples allows the forest to become old growth. 

An ovenbird’s song rings through the still air. These brown, striped warblers have a voice out of proportion to their small bodies. Teacher, TEAcher, TEA-CHER! the male shouts as he defends his territory. Human voices resonate, too, as we talk through a plan. Though loud and easy to hear, ovenbirds are notoriously hard to see. The female hides on the forest floor in a nest she built. Over five days, she wove dead leaves, grasses, bark, and hair into a little dome just the shape of a little brick pizza oven. Now, a bare patch on her belly where the feathers gave way smuggles body heat to her few speckled eggs. I have no idea where the nest is, but if I did get close, she would erupt in a flurry and feign a broken wing to lead this potential predator away. 

Rotten logs crumble damply under hiking boots as a line of people peer and prowl cautiously through the forest. These are the bodies of the big maples that made way for the little ones. Once in contact with the soil, a fine, white web of fungal hyphae sends out feelers only a single cell thick. The fungi exuded chemicals and enzymes to break down the cellulose in the wood, then absorbed the sugar. Some fungi can break down lignin—the compound that makes wood tough. The logs they rot are white. Many fungi leave the brown lignin behind, where it composts into the soil. Without this process, we’d be buried in old trees. Instead, the recycling power of fungi feeds new life. 

A red oak sapling whips across my bicep, stinging through my lightweight sleeve. Looking down, I see that a stump is the source of this head-high cluster. A big, old oak won’t do this, but younger trees seem to erupt with life. Those shoots sprouted from tiny buds—starting points for new growth—that lay dormant under the bark. When the tree is injured or cut, those buds grow rapidly. Because they are still connected to the roots of the parent tree, they get a head start in gathering resources and grow quickly. Death supports more life. 

A sea of maple-leaved viburnum’s white flowers stretches out through the shrub layer, now that I’m looking up more carefully as I walk. Waist high, these shrubs are a classic species of Northern Hardwood Forests. Mini umbrellas of flowers mature into black berries that feed a variety of birds and mammals. Their thick leaves obscure the forest floor. Who might be hiding under there? We part the stems and peek below. Come fall, their three-pointed leaves will turn many shades of pink and purple.

Balsam fir needles release their bright, Christmasy aroma when I dive through a thicket using my hands like a wedge and face shield all in one. I love this scent at the holidays, while doing trail work, and even while sipping tea. Ticks, however, may not. There’s some new science suggesting that winter ticks (who plague moose, not us) can be killed with balsam fir essential oil, especially when it’s cold. Emerging onto a little knoll, anticipation rises. Surely, we’ll find what we’re looking for here…

Now a raspberry cane scrapes across my thigh. There’s no avoiding them in the line I’m required to walk. At least they aren’t blackberries. Raspberry stems protect themselves weakly, with a fuzz of prickles across most surfaces. Blackberries arm their canes and the stems of their leaves with hard, sharp thorns that catch clothing and draw blood. These defenses protect the plants from hungry browsers and also provide shelter to any being small enough to slip between the spines. “Over here!” whispers my friend from the middle of the knoll. 

An elk calf lies curled up among the raspberries, the white spots on its warm brown fur blending with dappled light. Our search line bends to loosely encircle the baby, and two wildlife biologists slip a blindfold over his eyes, instantly calming any flight instinct he may have had. Soon we know: Thirty-seven pounds. Male. DNA sampled. The expandable GPS collar fitted perfectly. In just 15 minutes, the tasks are complete.  Elk have a very durable bond, and experience shows that the mother will return soon. Silent in our respect for this new life and the knowledge he could help us gather, we hike back toward the sugar maple cathedral. The forest hums with life. 

June is a perfect time to volunteer outdoors, and I was lucky enough to be invited on a calf search with Wisconsin DNR’s northern elk biologist. Learn more about elk in Wisconsin here: https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/wildlifehabitat/elk.

Emily M. Stone is a naturalist by birth, training, profession, and passion. She explores the Northwoods with an eye toward using science to bring stories to life.