The Garden Owls are Thriving

by Rod Miller

Three years ago I reported on the Great Horned Owls of Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary (“Owls of the Garden,” Spring 2021, VOL. 69 NO.1). We were one year into the COVID pandemic. We emerged from it a year ago but with caution. The owls that live in and around the Garden didn’t seem bothered and are thriving

Since my last report, they confiscated three Red-tailed Hawk nests near the entrance drive of the Garden and a Cooper’s Hawk nest in the fork of a White Pine just outside the Garden that overhangs the restrooms. They produced five offspring, only one of which failed to survive because that one fell from the nest last year.  

 

Visitors to the Garden and the surrounding Theodore Wirth Regional Park are captivated by the distinctly different calls of the male and female Great Horned Owl. The male’s melancholic call consisting of four to five syllables, “hoo-h-HOO-hoo-hoo,” is low and slow compared to the recognizably higher pitched, seven-syllable melodic call of the female. Most owls are nocturnal, so you are more likely to hear the owls at dusk when they are waking up after sleeping all day and before heading out to hunt for food.  

  

 

 

 

The Great Horned Owl mating season begins in December with vocalizations that are often called the “mating duet.” Many visitors to the Garden report hearing them. The owls breed during the month of January, and this year the female chose a nest near the Quaking Bog in early February. The male searched for nests and presented her with several options but she ultimately decided. The eggs she laid hatched about 32 days later in mid-March.

Look for the owlets on branches in mid-April as they exercise their wings preparing to fly. They will fledge in late May, so you may see their clumsy short-distance flights. The parents will feed them throughout summer and fall while their mother teaches them to hunt. By October, the parents will ignore their loud and persistent begging for food, forcing them to fend for themselves. By November, they will force the juveniles to move out of the territory, sometimes quite aggressively.  

 

Barred Owls have lived in and near the Garden for several years as well and have been very active. For the last three years, they have nested in tree cavities within 100 yards of the Garden, raising six offspring, all of which survived. Their distinctive two-sentence call: “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all?” is recognized by visitors and is often heard during the day from inside the Garden. At the end of the first week of March, the Barred Owls made their nest in the cavity of a tree within the Garden. This is the first time owls have nested inside the Garden in at least 20 years, according to Garden Curator Susan Wilkins and birding Naturalist Tammy Mercer. The Great Horned Owl and Barred Owl are archenemies, so it is very unusual that they have nested within 100 yards of each other for three years in a row. Perhaps they’re just being “Minnesota nice!” or have learned to get along. Listen and look for them when you visit the Garden and the surrounding woods.  

The highly secretive, bright yellow-eyed Saw-whet Owl is a newcomer to many who bird in Wirth Park. Several birders in the Early Birders Program have seen Saw-whet Owls in the northern sections of the Park near the Trailhead and the Chalet.

 

A small owl, it is almost exclusively nocturnal, so it is very difficult to find while roosting in small clumps of cedar trees during the day. We have yet to see a Saw-whet Owl close to the Garden but we are always looking. 

 

Two members of the Early Birders program recently reported seeing what they believe is the elusive Long-eared Owl not far from the Garden in Wirth Park near Bassett’s Creek. One was able to get a photograph of the owl in flight. I joined their search but I am still looking. 

 

Everyone is welcome at the EBWG Early Birders program. A Garden naturalist guides birders through and around the Garden on Saturday mornings from April through October. You can find information about the program and the schedule on the Garden’s website and Facebook page. 

 

There are many printed and online bird guide references for owls. I like one-stop shopping at the Cornell Lab’s “All About Birds.” On-line references:
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/great_horned_owl https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/barred_owl https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Northern_Saw-whet_Owl ❖

Saw-whet Owl with lunch on the branch. Photo below and above by Christopher Boser

 

Rod Miller is a neighbor of the Garden, former volunteer, and participant in its programming.
For his previous article and more history of the owls at Eloise Butler, consult our website at this link: articles/owls

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Letter from the President

Dear Friends,

What is awe? Eight hundred years ago, the word referred to fear and dread of the powerful destructive events of plagues, famine, and floods. Today we are more likely to associate it with a sense of wonder, a perception of being in the presence of vastness that transcends our understanding of the world.

Have you shed tears of joy holding a newborn, or had chills listening to Judy Collins or Barrack Obama sing “Amazing Grace,” or yelled “Whoa!” in Wirth Park under flapping world flags, sun, and blue skies, watching World Cup skiers race on six inches of fresh snow? You have experienced awe – a bodily response to an emotion.

Outside magazine published an article in July 2023 entitled “Awe Is Good for Your Brain. Here’s How to Find It.” The author went to the Mojave Desert to be awed by the superbloom. She learned it wasn’t just about her enjoyment of the colorful mass of flowers, but an in-depth appreciation for the plants. The seeds were produced, eventually germinated in an exceptionally wet year, and then made seeds for future blooms: “an outrageous cycle of hope.” She was in awe, being humbled by a much larger community of the natural world. The Power of Awe: The Book by Michael Amster, MD and Jake G. Eagle and Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life by Dacher Keltner were both published in 2023. The first teaches mindfulness to find awe and reduce stress, loneliness, and anxiety; the other tells the story of 20 years of awe research.

Keltner, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, gathered 2,600 narratives from 26 countries recounting an individual’s experience of awe. The most frequent theme was other people’s courage, kindness, and strength overcoming adversity, which he called “moral beauty.” Second was collective “efference,”,i.e., participating with others in rituals, from weddings to reunions to sporting events. The third of the eight taxonomies of awe was nature. The common thread in all of the stories was being part of something greater than us. 

When I volunteer at the entrance kiosk at the Garden, almost everyone has a smile when they leave. The plants, the trees, and the quiet, I believe, have given them awe. Speaking about the remarkable Eloise Butler and the Garden she created humbles me. I’m amazed at all that she accomplished, starting with her vision of a Garden to preserve the botanical wildness of Minneapolis, securing the land, promoting the Garden, and then tending it for 26 years. Eloise reflected, “I live and move and have my being in and for the Wild Botanic Garden.” Theodore Wirth concluded, “for a full quarter of a century her useful life has been spent in a labor of love.” I am in awe. Finding awe in our daily lives is important. As Keltner writes, awe decreases the egocentric activity of our brain cortex, allowing us to get outside ourselves and integrate with larger portions of community.

Last summer while hiking on Madeline Island, I barely missed stepping on an Indian Pipe plant (Monotropa uniflora). I had never seen one before but recognized it as a historic plant of the Garden. Native to Minnesota, Eloise planted it in 1909. It was last mentioned in Martha Crone’s 1951 census. The waxy white flower stalks (4-8 inches) pop out of the ground. It produces no chlorophyll and depends on the nourishment of rich woodland soil. It was a moment of “Whoa!”. 

Finding awe in our daily lives is important. As Keltner writes, awe decreases the egocentric activity of our brain cortex, allowing us to get outside ourselves and integrate with larger portions of community.❖ 

Photos: World Cup ski race at Wirth Park - Jessie Diggins on the downhill.
Indian Pipe - both by Jennifer Olson.

Archive of previous President's Letters.

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Juliette Got Us Thinking About Names

by Candy Bartol

Shakespeare’s Juliette famously asked “What’s in a name?” Some names stand the test of time, while others become controversial over time for reasons not originally anticipated.

Eponymous names, ones “for whom something is believed to be named” as defined by Merriam Webster, are tricky. Just recently a U.S. lunar vehicle named Odysseus of The Odyssey fame landed on the moon, proving his ancient eponym resilient. Alexander Ramsey has not fared as well. His name has been removed from two area middle schools with St. Paul’s becoming Hidden River for an aquifer underneath the building and Minneapolis honoring Supreme Court Justice Alan Page. In both cases students advocated and won change due to Ramsey’s treatment of the Dakota while territorial governor.

In an era when names are a'changing, some bird names are about to be updated. Since 2020 the American Ornithological Society (AOS) has been setting protocols and goals before changes begin in 2024. One involves eponyms in English-version bird names. The society contends some of current eponyms are attributable to people from long ago, some with discriminatory ideas, views not acceptable in contemporary North America. Any other bird name judged as insensitive will also be altered based on findings of a diverse ad hoc committee charged with selecting names in need of change a few at a time, totaling about 70 to 80. No Latin names will be affected as AOS only governs English changes.   

According to AOS President Handel, “There is a power in a name, and some names have associations with the past that continue to be exclusionary and harmful today.” Three goals are listed: eliminate controversial people with a history of discrimination, encourage birding across cultures, and actually describe the bird in its name. The hope is to encourage more diverse birdwatchers dedicated to preserving bird populations.

 

The Cooper's Hawk is one of 150+ birds in North America that are named after people. Those names are going away. Photo - Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren (CC 2.0)

A 2020 incident in New York’s Central Park provided an example of why change was needed. Runner Amy Cooper called police on birder Christian Cooper, falsely reporting a crime. Ironically, a bird eponym up for revision might be the popular Cooper’s hawk, named for a 19th century man actually credited with collecting specimens used to formally describe this species, but also espoused discrimination.  

 

In many English names for flora and fauna, the first part may be nouns like a person’s name, the place where found, or an adjective descriptive enough to make a basic identification. Words that are adjectives by definition may be found in ones like black-capped chickadee, with the hyphenated word clearly describing it.   

We can use the U.S. State Birds and Canada’s provincial ones to speculate if any might need repair, while noting how many are already descriptive. The list of the U.S. State Birds doesn’t contain eponyms while British Columbia has Steller’s jay, named for a 19th century German botanist, whose name is up for change because of his views, according to J. Drew Latham in a November 2023 Scientific American article by Megan Bartels.

Almost half of U.S. State Birds contain 2-3 words with the first word or phase a noun place name like midwest, mountain, or the state’s name. An equal number are descriptive examples containing specifics about birds like scissor-tailed flycatcher of Oklahoma, which is full of clues like the shape and function of its tail. If a birder spots one, it is identifiable by its distinctive tail. Minnesota’s and Ontario’s common loon is not as descriptive; however, there are three species summering in Minnesota, with two other summer visitors being quite rare for local bird sightings, the Pacific and red-throated loons. The Hawaii State Bird, the nene, is also known as Hawaiian goose, pointing to some having two recognized names. Some poultry can be seen among the choices, notably the blue hen chicken of Delaware.

Six of our states have declared western meadowlark as their state bird, noting place and maybe seeing it in a meadow. The northern cardinal is claimed by seven states, highlighting place as well as color. Two Canadian chose the great horned owl, which describes two separate elements.

Hopefully AOS actions will correct past wrongs and engage more people across cultural groups for the study, protection, conservation. and enjoyment of birds. This could be a perfect time to pay tribute to the rest of Juliette’s quote: a bird by any other name would still be neat. ❖

Visit the AOS website at this link.

Candy Bartol is a Friends Board Member.

Photos with CC and a number are are used under Creative Commons License CC BY-SA. Details at this link.

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How to Easily Identify Bird Calls Using the Merlin App

by Colin Bartol

Have you ever been walking in the woods and heard a bird whose song you could not identify? If you could just figure that out, you could then look up more information about the bird that would help you find it.

Fortunately there is now an app that can listen and identify bird songs in real time called Merlin Bird ID. You can even use it to identify birds when you travel, plus  it keeps a catalog of all the birds you have ever heard, providing even more functionality than just identification.

For years the Shazam app has allowed identification of songs. The Merlin app allows similar identification of birdsongs. It still seems like magic, though, when your application is able to identify a bird just from their song. Since much birding occurs where there is not internet availability, Merlin allows you to download in advance Bird Packs for  your geographic location, thus removing the connectivity requirement. After that, all you need to do is hit the Sound ID button, which triggers a recording and brings up the most likely species  if a match is made. 

 

As if that were not fun enough, there is additional functionality that further enhances the experience. Ordinarily, when traveling, bird identification is more challenging. Merlin will know where you are located and suggest additional Bird Packs to download. For example, I was traveling to several national parks in the Southwest. I downloaded the Southwest pack and was able to find a cactus wren, a canyon towhee, and other birds which I would not otherwise have found.  After the initial identification, Merlin offers a photo of the bird, other recordings of its calls, and a map of its range. If the bird identified is one you’ve  not recorded before, it gets added to your Life List, just like collecting real-life Pokemon.

I am having great fun with a friend seeing who can get the most birds identified. If you are lucky enough to get a photo  of a bird, Merlin can also help you identify it by using the Photo ID button. The developers from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology have put the time in to include all the functionality you could want–and some you did not think you needed, but will end up enjoying.

The Merlin app is a great tool for enhancing birding. Funded only through donations, it is an amazing way to get connected to nature. I cannot wait for the warblers to come this spring so I can add a few to my life list! I hope you will too and then we can compare our Life Lists on the Merlin app. ❖

Visit the Cornell Lab at this link

Colin Bartol is a Friends Director and editor of The Fringed Gentian™

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The Spring Garden Season

from Garden Curator Susan Wilkins

"The restful sleep of winter is over, the emptied snow clouds rolled away. There comes then a faint thrill of quickening life. The early flowers soothe the tired eye wearied by winters sombre tones. Soft spring colors in the woodlands, a flush of green on the boughs, the freshness of a bright spring day, then all nature wakes to sing."
Martha Crone 

While considering what spirit to convey for welcoming in spring this year with all of you, the Wildflower Garden’s community of friends and visitors, I found this quote above from Martha Crone which captures the essence of this time of transition so well. Written decades ago, her words still so aptly describe what feels to be a timeless time of year here in the mid-north of our northern hemisphere. Thank you, Martha!

  

Below: Martha Crone in the upland of Eloise Butler in 1951.
Minneapolis Tribune photo. Note in the right center background
how small the Norway Spruce are in 1951.
They were planted in the 1940s.

This winter has been a gentle one in terms of temperatures and the lack of icy sidewalks and frozen snowbanks to shovel. The pronounced warmth has been remarkable and hopefully will subside now that the El Nino weather pattern is breaking up over the Pacific Ocean. With climate change, it’s difficult to tease apart all of the variations of weather we now experience and to make sense of new patterns. It’s even more challenging to try to understand, or really grasp, what the future holds. In this experience of change, we are all here together now, going forward and finding our way, whether we want to be or not, here we are.

  

I will say that the Garden has quietly carried on through this nearly snowless winter and as of mid-March is showing the earliest signs of spring peaking through the leaf litter. A wee wild leek blade, a hint of green from last year’s Christmas fern fronds, silver maple and pussy willow flowers in bloom. For now, the warm days of early March have subsided, and the beginning hints of growth are slowed by cooler temperatures. Something for which I think we are all, many of us at least, pleased with.  

 

And as Martha Crone forewarns, regardless of cooler days now, spring will come and with it a flurry of activity that requires an incongruent pairing of patience and steadfast alertness if one does not want to miss the blossoms of the early spring woods.  

 

"In April and May, those who seek the shy spring flowers must search them out patiently in the woods, yet here in the wild flower garden one must be alert to keep pace with the rapid succession of the wildflowers."
Martha Crone 

We have much to look forward to this season at the Wildflower Garden. I will list a few highlights here and be sure to stay in touch by visiting with staff and volunteers at the Garden and also via our Facebook and Instagram pages @ebwgmpls. Returning and new staff are working diligently to prepare the Garden grounds and the programming offered at the Garden for visitors. We are scheduled to open on Tuesday, April 16 for the 2024 season. Look for program listings on the Garden’s webpage at www.minneapolisparks.org/ebwg 

Several planting projects are planned in the Garden, including a significant planting project to replace non-native periwinkle plants with native woodland plants, over the course of the season. 

The 2023-2024 bee census research work will continue this season, led by Entomologist Dr. Elaine Evans. This study is funded in partnership between the Friends of the Wildflower Garden and the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. We look forward to sharing Dr. Evans and her team’s findings in early 2025.

Improvement projects at the Garden, including the construction of an improved area for equipment storage, will likely be underway this spring. Information about projects like this will be posted on the Garden’s webpage. Follow the link under the Improvements Project header.

   Wishing you all a joyful and easeful transition into spring. I hope to see you on the Garden trails soon! ❖

Above - emerging fiddleheads of Christmas Fern. Photo G D Bebeau.

Read Susan's previous letters here.

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Tidbits

Fences - an old and new story Old Story - Eloise wants a fence.

One of Eloise Butler’s greatest frustrations was recurring damage to her wild garden caused by dogs, cats, errant hogs and people. She begged the Board of Park Commissioners for a fence. Nothing happened for years. She took to the newspapers to raise some awareness. One 1921 news writer put it this way:

It’s not the wild, voracious mosquito-
It’s not the snooping vagabond dog -
Nor is it the pussy-footing feline -
But it’s the demon surreptitious spooner thats brought the need for an encircling barbed wire fence around the wild flower garden in Glenwood Park to save plants of incalculable scientific value from destruction. A stray cat will pitter patter into the garden and leave a narrow trail. A dog seeking food perhaps in the shape of a ribbit (sic) will snoop through and leave a wider wallow -
But the spooning couple - “For destructive properties the army of tussock worms is a piker when compared with the Spooner.”

It came to a head 100 years ago when she announced in the Star Tribune that she was “paying for building the fence herself if necessary to save the collection. The fence is needed to keep our the few vandals who destroy in a few minutes the work of years and spoil the garden for the rest of the visitors.”

Then she had in installed for a cost of $696.10. The publicity must have been effective because after she informed Superintendent Theodore Wirth of what she had done, he promised her a check by December.

You can read the full story of her fences and later fence works in the Garden History Archive of our website.

New Story - the new fences This one hundred year fence story began last year when MPRB replaced a section of upland fence with a new one and added additional space to the Wildflower Garden. This year, with Friends funding, the MPRB is planning to replace more fence in the upland and add some additional area to the Garden. The replaced fence is not of 1924 vintage, that was replaced long ago, but it continues the process Eloise started of having a fence to protect this valuable area. Roaming hogs are scarce now-a-days in Wirth Park, but not so the quadrupeds with white tails.

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Notes For and About Our Donors and Volunteers

Update on our Student Transportation Grant Program

A big THANKS to all donors who contributed to our Student Transportation Grant Fund during last years campaign. We will once again provide transportation support for student groups to visit the Garden in 2024. The first groups are scheduled to arrive in May.

If you have not already helped in this campaign, please demonstrate your ongoing support of the Garden by making a tax-deductible contribution today:
Donate through our website support page at: www.friendsofeloisebutler.org

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Annual financial Support: October 2023 - March 2024

2023 Annual Support page.

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Other Donations and Memorials Received

Memorials/In-horonr-of Received
October 2023 - March 2024

for Elizabeth Anderson from Linda Engberg
for Bennett Lauerey Busselman from Nancy & Gary Busselman
for Richard Fournier from Katharine Fournier
for Helen Wright King from Susan Kornhaber
for Patrick Mack from Michael Mack
for Shawna Pearson from Jennifer Olson
for Patty Schoenfelder from Barbara Levie and Mark Kawell

In Honor Of Gary Bebeau from Joy Davis

 

Other Donations Received - separate or an addition to annual support giving
October 2023 - March 2024 from

2023 donations and memorials

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Other means of Support

Want to honor someone?

A gift in their honor can simply be a means of honoring a living person or some group

or

use this as an alternate type gift for a holiday, a birthday, an anniversary, etc. We will notify them of your gift and of how they will receive our newsletter and other communications for the year ahead. This will introduce them to the Friends and to the Garden. Use the mail-in form or the credit card link on our website 'Donate & Support' page.

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Board of directors positions

The Friends Board of Directors can use your talents! We are an all-volunteer board that meets several time per year and if you have an interest in the Wildflower Garden and in helping support it and our mission of educating the public about the Garden and the natural world get more details by sending an email to to our president at this address.

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You can also support our program by buying a plant identification book.

Do you have our Plant Identification Guide? The 3rd edition has 1,950 photos of the 787 flowering plants, trees and the ferns of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden including many that are of historic interest. Four hundred of these books have been sold, so why not get yours!

From a buyer in New Hampshire: What a terrific collection of photos. I’m sure this guide will be a great compliment to other guides I have. From Minnesota: I love the book and will cherish it for many years to come. Credit card order or use the mail order form, both on our website here.

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Sign up for Twigs & Branches: A monthly email update from the Friends containing news from the Garden and relevant MPRB projects, as well as access to website content featuring short articles from our Board and membership. These articles are written to highlight connections of the plants, history and lore of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden with different time frames or outside events.

If you already are signed up for our emails, you should be getting these. If you are not here's the link to the sign-up form. The form also allows you to sign up for our Fringed Gentian™ announcements and for the Friends Invasive Plant Action Group's emails.

Sign-up Form