March: Lamb? Lion? Either way, it brings spring
Frontenac State Park Association newsletter
March 2025 (Vol. 3, No. 3)
Comments, contributions, compliments, complaints? Reach your newsletter editor at pamelamarianmiller@gmail.com.
March: Lamb? Lion? Either way, it brings spring
We finally got a little snow in mid-February, though not nearly enough for decent skiing and snowshoeing in Frontenac State Park. Still, it briefly brightened the landscape, and we were delighted to have a little fresh snow for our Feb. 8 CandleNight, when about 350 people visited the park to walk a quiet, snowy trail lit by glowing ice luminaria and bookended by crackling bonfires. It was a lovely night, and we in the Frontenac State Park Association were honored to meet those of you who stopped by the picnic shelter to warm up by the wood stove, admire our first-ever nature art show, enjoy hot cocoa and cookies, and listen politely as we regaled you with our 100 percent true nature stories!*
But enough about snow! It’s March, Mabel! By now, it’s safe to say, most Minnesotans are hankering for spring. Even if we get late-winter or early-spring snow dumps (and, yes, we would welcome that, as we welcome all healthy precipitation), you’ll still find signs of spring peeking out in the park: Skunk cabbage or scarlet cup fungi. Migrating birds calling to each other in the park’s woods and waterfowl heading northwest along the Mississippi River flyway. Animals wandering out of hibernation, dazed and hungry and with litters of young to care for. Keep your eye out for all manner of spring things when you visit the park in March. And if you’d like to share observations/photos with us, we’d be delighted to receive them.
*Rigorous fact-checking has failed to verify this claim.
From our calendar to yours
Saturday, March 8, 10 a.m.-noon: Nature Explorers/Nature in the Neighborhood: Maple syrup tapping demonstration. Learn how maple syrup is made. Meet at the park’s main picnic shelter. This family-friendly event is sponsored by Project Get Outdoors, a partnering organization of the Frontenac State Park Association.
Saturday, March 22, 10 a.m.: Bird walk, Sand Point Trail. Meet at the Sand Point Trail parking lot at 10 a.m. Walk through the riparian forest and then along the beach to Sand Point. Look for winter and early spring waterfowl as well as resident birds of the forest, gulls and raptors. The trail is well maintained and flat. The full loop is approximately 2 miles long, but you can head out whenever you wish. Free; no need to register. Bring binoculars! Questions? Email janetmalotky@gmail.com. This event is free.
WORKSHOPS
For anyone interested in honing their photography skills or learning more about iNaturalist or eBird/Merlin, we are offering 3 workshops in April and May. More information to come in our April newsletter but save the date for these space-limited, free workshops. All will take place at the main picnic shelter.
Saturday, April 5, 10 am: Learn more about Frontenac State Park’s iNaturalist project and how to contribute to it with Steve Dietz.
Saturday, April 19, 5 pm: Would you like tips for taking wildlife photos? Earl Bye will share what he has learned after shooting thousands of pictures of birds and other wildlife. In this presentation, he will cover camera options, settings, and lens recommendations and review field techniques that he uses to find birds and get good shots.
Saturday, May 3, 10 am: This is a workshop with Janet Malotky for people who want to learn how to use the fun, free apps Merlin and eBird to deepen their appreciation and enjoyment of birds. At this workshop, we’ll learn how to navigate the apps on our phones and then we’ll go outside to use them.
May we all be so lucky as to spot … a fox!
By Pamela Miller, Minnesota Master Naturalist volunteer
Nobody doesn’t love glimpsing a red fox, perhaps darting at dusk across a Frontenac State Park prairie path or on the fringes of your rural or small-town yard. In the spring, your newsletter editor often sees one popping in and out of a musty old wood pile near her Old Frontenac home, its pups skittering behind.
Elusive and beautiful, foxes are fascinating for many reasons, including their way of running up to 30 miles per hour in pursuit of prey and springing in a perfect arc into deep snow or prairie grasses after said prey. Or their status as a fairly close cousin to your retriever or poodle. Or their very cool Latin nomer, Vulpes vulpes.
We love these lines from the Jane Hirschfield poem “Three Foxes by the Edge of a Field at Twilight”: “Something looks back from the trees, / and knows me for who I am.”
Here are some fox facts, courtesy of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources:
Foxes are largely carnivores. They eat mice, moles, voles, squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, snakes, fish, birds, nuts, seeds … and yeah, we’re glad to report, probably not your cat or diminutive dog (can’t promise that when we talk about coyotes, though). Foxes hunt most actively at twilight, and often stash food away for later consumption.
They live in ground dens or brush piles. The tunnels in which they give birth can be up to 40 feet long. But most nights/days, foxes prefer to sleep in the open, on the ground above their dens.
Foxes aren’t big. They weigh 8 to 16 pounds and are about 3 feet long and 15 inches high at the shoulder.
Across Minnesota, red foxes exhibit several color variations, from black to silver-black to red with black bands.
That awful scream you hear sometimes outside your open window at night that you fear is some hapless small animal dying? It’s probably a red fox just doing its thing, communicating some mild alarm. Foxes also bark, like dogs.
It’s legal to trap foxes in Minnesota. Trappers take up to 100,000 a year in the state. Coyotes, which foxes compete with for prey, also pose a danger to foxes. Another peril – a disease called sarcoptic mange that kills thousands of foxes every year.
Bird note: Migrant, vagrant, and casual birds
By Janet Malotky, Minnesota Master Naturalist volunteer
There’s such a focus on immigration these days. And so, I’ve been thinking about whether birds, the masters of migration, have anything to teach us about this topic.
Birds move through the world differently than people. Many are regular migrants, following ancient patterns across the landscape. They travel, sometimes incredible distances, to meet their needs for food, safe nesting places, and friendly weather. The Arctic Tern, with the longest known migration, flies more than 55,900 miles every year, from the Arctic to Antarctica and back!
Birds move where and when nature is serving up its richest platter. And in return for the bounty, they spread the seeds of the plants whose fruit they eat; help keep insect, rodent, and other populations in balance; fertilize the soil with their droppings, and benefit their surroundings in many other ways. Their relationships with surrounding plants and animals are reciprocal, with everyone both giving and receiving. Where and when there is abundance, it is shared. It’s a gift economy in which no living thing owns nature’s bounty.
Well, maybe the farmer does. Ownership is an idea we humans have imposed on nature. Although it’s very basic to the way we think about things, it’s not nature’s state. Unfortunately, ownership can tilt us toward forgetting about abundance and worrying more about scarcity. It can make it hard for us to share. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Through much of February, there was an interesting bird at the Mississippi Lock and Dam #3 just north of Red Wing. A Harlequin Duck was seen paddling about with the Common Goldeneyes. Harlequins are usually found up the Pacific Northwest coast through Alaska and in the Atlantic off Greenland and the eastern Canadian provinces down through Maine. It is rare for them to show up around here. Migrants are birds we expect to pass through every year, but birds who show up out of the blue are considered vagrants. This Harlequin Duck was a vagrant, way out of its breeding and wintering grounds. When vagrants appear, they cause a ruckus, but not among other birds. It’s birders who get excited.
We aren’t sure why birds show up in unexpected places. Something about their internal navigation systems may be screwy, or a storm may blow them off course. The latter was suspected when five flamingos were spotted in Wisconsin in 2023. Another possibility is that they might hitch a ride on “public transportation,” as was suspected of the Brown Boobie who showed up near Winona a few years back and who may have come up from New Orleans on a barge.
We’ve had vagrants in Frontenac State Park. In 2023, we spotted a cluster of five Black Scoters bobbing off Sand Point. These birds normally hang out in remote northern Quebec and Alaska. Last year there was a Barrow’s Goldeneye, usually seen in far western Canada and the United States. More common, but still unusual, are the “casual” birds who don’t come through every year, but show up every few years. An example of casual birds are the two American Avocets we saw wading with the gulls at the mouth of Wells Creek in 2022. Such a delightful surprise! And we can welcome them all.
Notes from the field: biochar
By Steve Dietz, Minnesota Master Naturalist volunteer
“Biochar” sounds like it could be the name of a new vape lounge, but think of it more like the answer to the perennial question — now that I’ve cut down all that buckthorn/cleared a new trail/removed all those dead ash trees, what do I do with all that remains?
Biochar, it turns out, is a lot like charcoal, produced by heating organic material — such as wood and plant waste — only in a high-temperature, low-oxygen environment. One benefit of such “supercharged” charcoal is that it effectively locks up to 80% of the carbon in the burned material in a stable, solid form, preventing it from re-entering the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. In other words, rather than releasing a heat-trapping greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, as usually happens when woody materials are burned, it actually stores it in a stable form in the resulting char.
When the char is added to soil, it improves its structure, enhances water retention, and boosts nutrient availability — all desirable effects beyond its role in locking up carbon dioxide.
Great River Greening has been a leader in Minnesota in exploring the benefits of biochar and fine-tuning its processes. At a recent event at Frontenac State Park, they used buckthorn that had been cut during a work day last year to create biochar in an “Oregon kiln,” pictured above, which was then spread directly on former cropland that the park has a long-term goal of returning to native prairie. Win. Win. Win.
Thank you to everyone who participated in the buckthorn removal and biochar events.
The beauty and grace of Sandhill Cranes
Very soon, you may be lucky enough to see Sandhill Cranes in and around Frontenac State Park. These photos were taken about this time of year, in a past year, by FSPA chair and avid birder Steve Dietz. The photo information was part of a “Bird note” essay back in June 2023 written by birder and essayist extraordinaire Janet Malotky.
Each spring’s return of Sandhill Cranes to the park is an occasion for happiness. Once common in Minnesota, Sandhills were nearly wiped out by the 1940s by habitat loss, human incursion and hunting. Now a protected species, they are making a comeback. Because the park has at least one nesting pair of Sandhills, they are commonly seen and heard once they arrive in late March to mid-April. …
… Sandhills are big birds, up to 5 feet tall and with a wingspan near 7 feet. Their loud, crackling call is easy to recognize. There is nothing quite like observing a group of cranes stepping along a mudflat on a misty morning. And in flight, they are truly beautiful birds.
One possible place to see them is at Pleasant Valley Lakelet. Follow the Prairie Trail to the wildlife blind overlooking the lakelet. There you might observe them nest-building or finding succulent frogs, bugs and snakes to eat. Keep an eye peeled on nearby plowed fields, where the birds can frequently be seen picking up fallen grain. Just west of Frontenac Station, a pair of cranes has spent harrowing hours along the edge of Hwy. 61, seemingly unfazed by the traffic zooming nearby. …
… And in recent years, Sandhills have been spotted on a nest in Frontenac State Park. They build ground nests of grassy materials in wetlands. The female lays two eggs, and the pair share parenting duties. Although newly hatched “colts” are precocial (meaning they are up and about right after hatching and leave the nest that first day), they stay with their parents for nine to 10 months. It is charming to see their fuzzy brown gangliness wading through the reeds next to their much taller parents. The colts will be able to fly when they’re 65 to 75 days old — just in time for their migration to Florida in early September to mid-November.
Mushroom of the month: The scarlet elfin cup
This isn’t the first March in which we’ve heralded the imminent arrival of one of the first fresh fungi to pop up in the woods. But we can’t resist repeating ourselves, just as the cycle of seasons repeats itself in a forever reassuring way.
When your newsletter editor spied her first scarlet elfin cup (Sarcoscypha coccinea) a few years back, she thought it was a candy wrapper and stooped to pick it up, muttering, How can people litter back here in the woods?! What a happy, humbling surprise to find this bright, beautiful little early-spring fungi!
How can anything natural be that radiant, especially this time of year, when all seems dull and dead? Ah, but it is. If you’re walking on a Frontenac State Park woodland trail this month, keep an eye out for that jewellike red wherever decomposing leaves and sticks litter the forest floor. The browner, wetter and muddier the ground, the more likely you are to spot them. If you pick one up, you’ll find that it’s almost always attached to a twig, making it resemble a little pipe.
Bruce Ause’s blog wisdom: How animals survive, even thrive, in winter
Last month, our favorite correspondent, Bruce Ause – interpretive naturalist and retired director of Red Wing’s Environmental Learning Center – described his encounter in Frontenac State Park with legendary escaped goat White Lightning in his wonderful nature blog post. This month, we refer you to his photos and narratives about how animals endure, and even thrive, in deep midwinter. Thank you, Bruce, for sharing your wisdom with us! Can’t wait till spring, when we’ll join you for your ever-popular Saturday walks in the park!
Poem of the month
“THE RISING OF THE STORM”
By Paul Laurence Dunbar (American, 1872-1906)
The lake's dark breast
Is all unrest,
It heaves with a sob and a sigh.
Like a tremulous bird,
From its slumber stirred,
The moon is a-tilt in the sky.
From the silent deep
The waters sweep,
But faint on the cold white stones,
And the wavelets fly
With a plaintive cry
O'er the old earth's bare, bleak bones.
And the spray upsprings
On its ghost-white wings,
And tosses a kiss at the stars;
While a water-sprite,
In sea-pearls dight,
Hums a sea-hymn's solemn bars.
Far out in the night,
On the wavering sight
I see a dark hull loom;
And its light on high,
Like a Cyclops' eye,
Shines out through the mist and gloom.
Now the winds well up
From the Earth's deep cup,
And fall on the sea and shore,
And against the pier
The waters rear
And break with a sullen roar.
Up comes the gale,
And the mist-wrought veil
Gives way to the lightning's glare,
And the cloud-drifts fall,
A sombre pall,
O'er water, earth, and air.
The storm-king flies,
His whip he plies,
And bellows down the wind.
The lightning rash
With blinding flash
Comes pricking on behind.
Rise, waters, rise,
And taunt the skies
With your swift-flitting form.
Sweep, wild winds, sweep,
And tear the deep
To atoms in the storm.
And the waters leapt,
And the wild winds swept,
And blew out the moon in the sky,
And I laughed with glee,
It was joy to me
As the storm went raging by!
Interested in joining the FSPA?
If you were a member in 2024, thank you! You allowed us to pursue our mission of supporting this treasured park with service days, new bird amenities, a new park sign, and many interpretive outings.
Membership is on an annual basis. If you have not yet renewed, please do so. If you’d like to join us, we’d be honored to have your support. Dues are $25 per year for an individual, $35 for dual/family membership. Here’s a link with signup information.
A reminder that joining us occasionally to help with volunteer efforts is awesome too, even if you’re not a member. The FSPA’s goals are to support the park and share our love of Frontenac State Park with as many people as possible.
To sign up to regularly receive this free, spam-free monthly newsletter, click on “Subscribe” below. Feel free to send questions or comments to your newsletter editor at pamelamarianmiller@gmail.com. Questions about the FSPA? You can reach hard-working FSPA chair Steve Dietz at stevedietz@duck.com.
Handy links for more information and education
Frontenac State Park
Frontenac State Park Association
If you take pictures in the park, tag us on Instagram
Frontenac State Park bird checklist
Frontenac State Park on iNaturalist
Parks & Trails Council of Minnesota
Website for our township, Florence Township
Minnesota Master Naturalist programs
Red Wing Environmental Learning Center
Lake City Environmental Learning Program on FB
Visit Lake City
Frontenac State Park staff
Jake Gaster, park manager; Amy Jay, assistant park manager; Amy Poss, lead field worker
Parting shot
Thank you, readers and park visitors!
This is Volume 3, No. 3 of the Frontenac State Park Association newsletter, which was launched in April 2023.
Here’s where to browse the full archives of this newsletter.