Wacky weather habitat impacts, peregrine falcons and badgers

In this episode of the Wildtalk Podcast, we talk to Chris Hoving about how Michigan's wacky weather affects habitat and wildlife, fly away with a discussion about peregrine falcons, and we wrap up the episode with a chat about badgers.

Episode Hosts: Rachel Lincoln and Eric Hilliard
Producer/editor: Eric Hilliard

• All things habitat
  • Michigan State Game and Wildlife Areas
  • Michigan's Wetland Wonders
  • Dams
  • Bat roosting survey info
• All things feathers
  • Peregrine falcon
• All things fur
  • American badger
  • Michigan.gov/Trapping

Questions or comments about the show? Contact the DNR Wildlife Division at 517-284-9453 (WILD) or email dnr-wildlife@michigan.gov.

Transcript

Speaker
You know what that sound means. It's time for the Michigan DNR WildTalk podcast. Welcome to the WildTalk podcast for representatives from the DNRs Wildlife Division chew the fat and shoot the scat about all things habitat, feathers, and fur. With insights, interviews, and your questions answered on the air. You'll get a better picture of what's happening in the world of wildlife here in the great state of Michigan.

Rachel
Hello everyone, and welcome to the WildTalk Podcast. This is your host, Rachel Lincoln, bringing you the August episode. Here with me today, as always, is my co-host, Eric Hilliard.

Eric
It is the month of August, kids are going to be going back to school soon.

Rachel
No, no, no, no, no. It's still August. We have an agreement in my house, we do not say the s-word during summer, so no talking about school.

Eric
So you don't say it until the first day?

Rachel
Until the first day of school, you are not allowed to once talk about school.

Eric
So what do you do when you have to go shopping for s-word clothes or a trapper keeper or backpack?

Rachel
We're just going shopping. We're just getting some new goods for no particular reason.

Eric
Okay. All right. Well, we won't mention that word of educational institutions then, until the month of September. 

Rachel
Correct. 

Eric
The S month.

Rachel
That is the S month. Do you think do count August as the end of summer.

Eric
No. I feel like summer stretches into September these days. Sometimes even into October. It feels like.

Rachel
Yeah, I would agree. I have a couple memories of like the first days of school where it was like 90 degrees in your classroom because schools don't have air conditioning and you are just super hot and still very much you're still looking to go swimming in September most of the time.

Eric
Yeah. And you really feel it for those middle school teachers where kids are, you know, not really using deodorant or whatever, and they're all just in this hot, sticky classroom together. And those poor teachers, you got to feel for them.

Rachel
Middle school teachers especially. 

Eric
Yeah. 

Rachel
I give my utmost respect, praise. Thank you for your service.

Eric
And parents, make sure you're helping to lighten the burden of those teachers by teaching your children proper hygiene techniques at home.

Rachel
Deodorant goes a long way. Now, before we jump into the show, of course we want to take a moment to recognize the folks who donated to the Non Game Wildlife Fund to support conservation of Michigan's rare species. We have two new donors this month. A huge thank you to our most recent donor, Daniel Baker, and to an anonymous donor. We have quite a handful of anonymous donors at this point, so you can be anonymous. That's just fine. But remember, if you want to hear your name, we want to say your name on the podcast.

Eric
Maybe we should just start making it up. Like who we think the anonymous person is that donated money like, oh, this month Tom Hanks donated X amount of dollars. We don't know for sure that it's Tom Hanks because it was anonymous, but we have a really good feeling that it was Tom Hanks.

Rachel
It was definitely Tom Hanks. Thank you Tom.

Eric
Thank you, Tom Hanks.

Rachel
Thank you, Tom Hanks. Well that brings the total amount of donations to the Non Game Wildlife Fund to $1,776 since September of last year.

Eric
What do we have lined up for our listeners this August month?

Rachel
We have another great episode for you. First up, Chris Hoving is back on the podcast. Our climate adaptation specialist. He's here to talk about weather and in particular some large weather storms we've seen impact state lands in recent years. And what those storms can mean for wildlife and habitat. Then we'll pivot into ospreys, which are awesome. And also you can still see them this time of year and are almost as large as Bald eagles. So we're going to learn some cool facts about them and all of their strange adaptations to help them to be the most successful at catching fish. And then we'll wrap it up with the badger, an elusive little critter that would much rather spend its time digging holes underground than literally anything else.

Eric
So this is the regular badger, though. This is not the the famed Honey badger of Honey badger internet fame.

Rachel
It is not the honey badger we will be discussing the American Badger, though they have some similarities, they are quite different. So no mongoose chasing in the American badger.

Eric
Yep. No. No cobras.

Rachel
No cobras.

Speaker 1
Doing battles with cobras.

Rachel
No cobra battling here. Of course, later on in the episode will have your chance to win a mug. So stick around for that trivia question. All right, folks, we'll be right back. But first, a word from our warblers.

Speaker 
Hey, Michigan drivers, the little bird told me your license plate can do more than just tag your car. The wildlife habitat plate featuring the iconic Kirtland warbler helps protect Michigan's Non Game fish and wildlife through the Non Game fish and wildlife trust fund. But hurry, this plate is changing soon. Want to keep the warbler flying? You can even get one as a collector's item. No car required. Support Michigan's wildlife and get your plate before this bird flies away. Visit michigan.gov/SOS.

Rachel
Weather in Michigan, especially in the summertime, is anything but predictable. Now over the last two years especially, we've seen some really intense weather events, especially on state lands. Things like a large tornado that touched down on the Gourdneck State Game Area, and a massive ice storm that recently swept across several northern Michigan counties. To talk about whether and how that relates to long-term trends, we are bringing back the wildlife division, climate adaptation specialist Chris Hoving. To help us understand how these events all tie into those broader climate trends, and what that means for habitat that wildlife depend on. Welcome back to the show, Chris. We're super happy to have you back on. Thanks for joining us.

Chris
Well, thank you, Rachel, it's great to be back.

Rachel
Well, why don't you start by reminding listeners what your role is here in the Wildlife Division?

Chris
Okay. So yeah, my role is to be the expert on all things climate and adaptation and other big trends that are happening out there. So, you know, I'm looking towards the horizon, looking towards changes that are happening in the wildlife space, in the science space and then the climate space.

Rachel
Excellent. Well, let's dive in to our questions. We have many of them for you. Now the last time you were on the show, you had mentioned how we're seeing a 60% increase in the frequency of storms. Is that still the case here in Michigan?

Chris
Yep. That's still a trend. That is that is holding. So we've seen an increase both in the number of storms that we get and also the intensity of those storms. So when it does rain it rains harder. And that translates into flooding.

Rachel
And is that flooding does that impact statewide. Are you seeing it in some regions of the state?

Chris
Oh no, we're seeing it statewide. So we're seeing we've seen impactful flooding in the U.P. we've seen it in southern Michigan, down in Detroit. Really. It's it's the whole state.

Rachel
And in addition to flooding some of those large storms, do they impact certain types of habitats or are you seeing impacts across multiple types of habitats across the state?

Chris
Yeah, we're seeing it to habitats, and we're also seeing it to the infrastructure that we have out there on the landscape that allows people to access the land. So we're seeing it to wetlands, especially where when we get more flooding, certain wetlands do benefit from a certain amount of flooding. But if they get too much, if it's too wet too long, that can put undue stress on them and degrade the habitat.

Rachel
Okay. And you mentioned infrastructure.

Chris
Infrastructure as well. Yeah.

Rachel
Okay. Could you speak a little more on how infrastructure has been impacted.

Chris
Yep. So infrastructure has been impacted because it is designed to the amount of storms that we've had in the past. And so and the size of storms that we've had in the past. And what we're seeing is when we get larger storms, maybe the culvert that runs under the road is not large enough to handle the the new amount of rain. That is sort of the new normal. And then those culverts can can blow out. You can see it, you know, at extreme cases you can see it with, with dams as well. And we have seen that right. We've seen the impacts of large water events and what happens to older dams. Yeah. It's a lot of water that moves through them swiftly. Yeah. We've seen it on our own lands. You know the dams that we have with the Wildlife Division, we've had a couple smaller dams fail, mostly flooding, you know, areas of the woods. And so not having a lot of impact on people. But there have also been some large dams in Michigan that were not on wildlife lands that have also failed and really impacted folks. There was one up in the in the thumb region near Midland that was very impactful about five years ago.

Rachel
Something that honestly always surprises me when I remember it, is that the Wildlife Division owns more dams than any other organization in the state. Is that correct? We have more dams on wildlife owned lands? 

Chris
Yes, that's correct. We have a lot of dams. And what that comes to is back in the 60s and 70s, we were doing a lot of work restoring wetlands across the state and especially for waterfowl. And that involved putting, very small dams. You know, we're not we're not talking Hoover Dam and we're talking something that's 2 or 3, sometimes as much as six feet tall in waterways to back up the water. Often there was a wetland there before and maybe a ditch was put in that drained the wetland. And so we then put a dam on the ditch to put the wetland back into place. But we did a lot of those, and we still do those when we're restoring wetlands. Really, a lot of wetland restoration is just building very small dams across the landscape. But one of the challenges we're having now is that those dams were all designed for the amount of flooding, the amount of precipitation that we got in the past. And now that that's increased by, you know, 60%, a lot of those dams are not built to that, that design. We're having to go back, inspect a lot of dams. We're doing a lot of either pulling out dams that aren't going to withstand this new normal for for rainfall, or we're rebuilding them, hardening them, making them more robust so they can handle this, this new precipitate regime that we're in.

Rachel
Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned dams. You know, we're not talking about Hoover dams level or at the Hoover Dam scale of size. I recently went out on a dam inspection with a wildlife biologist, and it was it just looked like a drain in the ground when there was a culvert that was buried under our feet that you never would have noticed, ever. But this counts as like a piece of infrastructure that retains water that really has to be closely monitored and potentially removed. 

Chris
Yeah. 

Rachel
For the health of these ecosystems. So yeah, we're not talking big large scale dams just like often small retaining ponds.

Chris
Yep. Yeah. And they're often incorporated into into roads. And so you don't even think of it as being a dam, you know, going north on 127. There's the that, that bridge there that you go over on the highway and that separates part of, you know, Maple River State Game Area from another part of it. And there's a water control structure built into the road there.

Rachel
And we've mentioned a there are a lot of dams and wildlife lands, and that we're starting to really address that infrastructure. And a lot of that is because we're seeing an increase in heavy storm events. So we're starting to rethink how we manage the land for weather impacts. Are there any other considerations we have for how we're managing our wildlife lands for these storms?

Chris
Yeah, it goes to more than just just floods and dams. There's also heat. And so heat can affect roads. And you know a lot of our roads are designed, our sidewalks are designed with like a certain size crack in them. And that's actually and this is something I just learned recently that the size of the crack is determined by like how hot it gets. Because when it gets hot, the cement expands and sort of fills in that, that crack. But if it gets too hot, hotter than what you designed it for, if your crack is too small, the two pieces of the sidewalk will buckle up against each other, and then they'll they'll bounce up out of the ground. And we're seeing with the heat wave that we had earlier this spring, we were seeing roads, not so much in this state. I think we got sort of our our cracks of are not sensitive or maybe sized right for this, but in other states they were seeing a lot of roads that were just suddenly buckling. And yeah, there's a great video of our car that just like, you know, it buckled at the same time the car was going to hit it in the car just into the air.

Eric
Oh I saw that. 

Chris
It's yeah, I was like, and that's just the way, you know, we designed everything for the heat, for the rainfall, for for the climate that we had. And now with the climate is changing, we're having to redesign things in ways that we hadn't really expected.

Rachel
Certainly. I guess I've always heard of ice being real consideration with roads because it expands the cracks in the roads causing bigger... It's I've never considered heat also being an issue.

Chris
Yep.

Rachel
Interesting. Are you involved in any I mean, we don't have sidewalks on our wildlife lands.

Chris
We don't we we have mostly, mostly dirt roads. So there's not a not a lot that's, that's impacting us directly from the heat side.

Rachel
But it's do you think or do you know like he has to affect blooms right. Like plants vegetation and then how insects would respond. It's got a six plant growth in that cycle I would imagine.

Chris
Yeah. And that's where we're seeing a lot of impacts to to wildlife is in the change to the length of the growing season. And then the shifting in the seasons. So the the springs are coming earlier, falls are happening later. And a lot of especially insects are very sensitive to that length of the growing season. We're seeing it in, in butterflies and insects because the season is getting longer than what they can, they can stand. And so it's impacting negatively impacting some of our where butterflies and such. And we suspect based on the science in other states and other countries, that it's having a lot of impacts on a species that we aren't tracking as closely as maybe our endangered butterflies.

Rachel
Sure. Okay. Have some of those things you don't monitor for a year to year during the same week, so you can't really measure the same impacts.

Chris
Right? And there's just so many species. I mean, we have 10,000 species estimated of of insects in Michigan. So it's it's by far the most diverse group. And it's also the base of the food chain for most of the wildlife that we see. I mean, most of the birds feed insects to their young. Most of the, the aquatic animals will eat aquatic insects. And so insects are really sort of the unseen heroes of wildlife conservation.

Rachel
Yeah. Most definitely. Now back to major weather events. So we mentioned the tornado in Gourdneck that took out a whole swath of state game area trees. And then of course, the ice storm that affected the northern Michigan counties and the habitats on those game areas. Now, both of those resulted largely in a lot of downed or broken trees. Can you talk about how those big structural changes affects wildlife? There's got to be pros and cons to that, right?

Chris
Yep. Yeah. There there are pros and cons to it, especially those two impacts. Tornadoes and ice storms do take down a lot of trees. And they can be very impactful, especially when they happen like on your property or near your property. I live in a house that was was struck by a tornado in 2015. So, you know, I, I know about, you know, the clean up and the cost and how difficult it can be. But for wildlife, a lot of the impacts are relatively positive. When you get the, forest canopy opened up like that, it allows light through to the floor of the forest and that allows more plants to grow. You get more plants, you get more insects. Suddenly there's a lot more there for deer and turkey and other things to eat. And so, at least in the short term, it'll probably be a benefit to a lot of wildlife species. There will. There are some species that need that like solid canopy all the way across, especially some of our warblers like blackbird warbler, really need that unbroken canopy. And they're going to have a hard time just in those those couple counties that were hit or, you know, the areas where we had tornadoes, they'll be able to find other places in the meantime and then come back when the canopy fills back in.

Rachel
Okay. And then the trees, it sounds like many of the trees were kind of broken off at the top. So then it leaves this standing dead tree. And that's. That's a pretty good thing for wildlife, right?

Chris
Yeah. We're always advocating for for leaving, you know, dead trees, you know, even in timber sales and stuff. If there's a dead tree in there, you know, don't bother cutting it down. Just leave it there for the woodpeckers. And then once the woodpeckers are done with it, other things can can move into it, like raccoons and possums and things like that.

Rachel
And bats. I'm on a big batch kick right now and so we're just like telling everybody everywhere, leave your dead standing tree they're roost habitat, right?

Chris
Yep, yep. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. And our bats have been impacted by a disease called white nose syndrome. And so they're they're slowly bouncing back from that, which is good news. But yeah, they need all the help they can get.

Rachel
Yeah. Quick plug. If you see a bat roost make sure you report it this time of year. It's really important for monitoring where bats are at in the state. So I set myself up for that one.

Chris
There you go. 

Eric
And we'll have a link to that in our show notes so you can easily find it.

Rachel
Thank you Eric. Crucial as always. Now, you know, when the ice storm first hit, we were trying to evaluate maybe some immediate impacts to wildlife. And it's it's really hard to know what the immediate or long term impacts were to wildlife with a storm like that. Right. It's going to take a lot of monitoring. But there was some conversation around how the storm hit during a really sensitive window for some species in particular, like early nesting species, things like owls and bald eagles. Do you think there was much of an impact there or do we know anymore?

Chris
Yeah, there probably was an impact there because it was a long period where they were being rained on and, you know, it was below freezing. And so that can that can definitely impact nesting, especially for some of the owls and the eagles. Definitely because they have that open, open nest. And so we would expect that those would be some impacts to species. Probably just impacts for this year. And you know, they're they're long lived species. So they bounce back later.

Rachel
So are these one off weather events or are these part of a larger trend?

Chris
So the answer is actually a little bit different for tornadoes and for ice storms. For the tornadoes, which we discussed, we don't really have a good sense of tornado dynamics in the climate models. We don't know really if there's a trend, if the trend is part of climate change and so on. It's just something that's still an area of active research. For ice storms, though, there's some new research that's just been done that shows that the area where you get ice storms is shifting to the north and so the the ice storm that we just had could be an example of that, that shift from something that we've, you know, you get ice storms quite a bit, you know, in Missouri and the Appalachians and such. They're less common here in Michigan and definitely less common. You know, the further north you go. And so seeing it as far north as we did, that was a little unusual. And it is in keeping with the trends and the predictions.

Rachel
That is counterintuitive to everything. I would have thought about Michigan weather. I would have assumed there was more ice storms farther north where it's colder. What's the reason for why they happen in southern states are now in southern Michigan.

Chris
So you get ice storms more often in areas where you're on the edge between sort of a just a rainy environment for the winter and a snowy environment. And so we don't really in the winter time, we don't get a lot of rain, or at least in the past, didn't get a lot of rain, especially in northern Michigan and the U.P. like if it's winter, it's probably going to be snowing. Whereas if you go down to Missouri, if it's winter, it's either rain or very rarely snow, but it's rain or freezing rain down there. And so as that sort of shifts to the north, then we're starting to see more freezing rain further north.

Rachel
Interesting. Okay, so are we seeing less snow storms farther north as well?

Chris
Or so that's a really interesting one. The we are seeing more big snow storms. And this is something that's very clear in the climate models. And it's something that is also very clear in the the trend data over the last 30 years. When you start talking about like a six inch snowstorm or getting a foot of snow, that's happening a lot more often than it did in the past. But the one inch to inch, the flurry sort of things that's happening less often, those those are happening either turning into rainstorms or they're just not happening as often. So we're seeing, you know, when I talked about flooding, it was an increase in the number and size of our storms. When we're talking snow storms, it's just an increase in the and actually, it would be an increase in the number and size, but only of the large storms, not of the small storms.

Rachel
I feel like there's just so many other good questions that could be asked as a follow up to that, right?

Chris
It does make people just, you know, you begin to think, oh, you know, climate change is happening. I don't need to maybe have the shovel, or maybe I don't need to invest in a snowblower, but because it's that you're getting an increase in the big storms, it's like, well, yeah, you probably do need the shovel, the snow blower. But these things sort of catch people off balance because you think climate change, you think it's just going to be less snow, it's just going to be warmer. But because it's increasing the amount of precipitation, the amount of water vapor in the air, when you do get storms, you know, more often they're going to be a doozy.

Rachel
Okay, so we're getting more water and we're getting more heat. And that's leading to some big weather changes. Yeah. Is that leading to more flooding in the spring or is that a stretch now?

Chris
It's leading to more flooding in the spring and especially in southern Michigan, more flooding in the winter time too. So what you what you'll get is a large snowfall event. And so there'll be suddenly a lot of snow on the landscape, and then you get a rain storm after that and rain on snow, especially when the ground is frozen. So the water can't get into the into the soil. But that's that's a recipe for really big flooding events. And so that's, that's often when we're seeing our most impactful flooding is in the winter and into the spring.

Eric
Sure. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. So when these big storms do happen, oftentimes people wonder if there is anything they could have done to like, help their backyards, you know, prevent flooding or if there's anything they should do moving forward after you've seen a couple floods or big windstorms or something in your area, is there anything people can do to either protect their own backyards and community or protect local wildlife?

Chris
Yeah, I think the the main one that I always tell people is native plant gardens and especially rain gardens. So a rain garden is really just a native plant garden where you, you put it in a depression or maybe you dig it out a little bit. So the water collects in that spot. And the really cool thing about rain gardens and this really only works. It doesn't work when the soil is frozen, because anything that water that lands on is just going to run off into the storm sewer. But the rest of the year, you want to encourage as much water to sort of stay in place and go into the ground, rather than running off the surface of your yard and into the storm sewer. Or, you know, God forbid, pooling around your house and then flooding your basement. So by putting in plants, it actually increases the amount of water that can get down into the ground, and it increases it by a lot. So it'll turn the clay soil will actually absorb water like a loam soil, and a loam soil will absorb water like sandy soil if it's got native plants on it, because the native plants have deep roots, and the roots sort of let the water trickle down deeper into the ground.

Rachel
Okay, so that's the biggest difference between like native plants and non-native plants is the root systems. They are substantially different.

Chris
Yes. Yeah. Especially like turfgrass turf grass only goes down like an inch or two. So it's really, you know, not very absorbent for water. Water hits it and then just goes off because the roots are so dense. Whereas if you've got a bunch of wildflowers or native grasses, those roots will go down a foot, two feet. If you've got just the right sort of soil and you've got nutrients deeper, they'll go down as much as ten 20ft into the ground.

Rachel
Then that's so interesting. We talk about native plants a lot, right? Which we just did with insects, how they benefit birds. They look really nice for long periods of the year, but really what happens underground? What you don't see can seriously improve the quality of your life, right? If they can help avoid house flooding. Right? And it's probably worth getting some native plants to help put around the foundation of your house, or place your effort to intentionally move water towards.

Chris
Yeah man. If you can like, dig out a little bit between like the sidewalk and the road so that, you know, the water going down the sidewalk can sort of divert off into that spot and you've got native plants there that will save the city from having, you know, flooded storm drains and things like that.

Rachel
Yeah, I'm a recent new homeowner. And so I'm learning all of the joys of home ownership. And my number one takeaway so far has been water always wins. Yes. You've... it has to be a fundamental concern. Or else, damage.

Chris
Yeah. Exactly. You know you want to have the sloping away from the house. You want to have good clean gutters and so on. But yeah, once it's all through the gutters, in a way you also want to get it down into the ground as soon as possible. It also has benefits for, you know, helps climate change too, because those deep rooted plants are storing that carbon deep underground. So even when the plant dies and the roots die, the carbon from that plant that it's, it's pulled the carbon dioxide out of the air, it's storing it underground, and it's not going to make its way back to the back to the air as quickly as, say, the aboveground parts of the plant that died.

Rachel
Sure. Okay. So if people were thinking about putting a rain garden in because it's not too late this far in the summer, right? Like you can consider putting these things in at any time.

Chris
This is like, this is a great time because usually they've discounted all the the plants at right, the garden center.

Rachel
Okay. So if you had to name three plants to consider putting in your rain garden, what would your recommendations be?

Chris
Oh, goodness. So coneflower would be the first one. It's very.

Rachel
Super pretty.

Chris
Very pretty, very easy to grow. Butterfly weed. It says weed in it, but it's one of the prettiest flowers. Really bright orange and butterflies just adore it. Plus, monarchs will lay their eggs on it so it helps monarchs. And then the third one, probably monarda or beebalms. 

Rachel
All three stunners. All of these are very beautiful flowers.

Chris
Yeah, yeah. And the beebalm will pull in the hummingbirds as well, which is always fun to watch.

Rachel
Yeah, our monarda our beebalm is my most favorite native plant we have in our backyard, because it looks like it's straight out of Doctor Seuss. Like it grows kind of squiggly little petals. It's bright purple and beautiful. So yeah, great choices. Chris. Well, thank you so much for joining us. This is very interesting and insightful conversation. We love having you on the podcast. We are big fans of you and the work that you do and just appreciate you taking the time to join us.

Chris
Oh my pleasure. I love podcasts in general and this one is a great one.

Rachel
Oh, thank you. Yeah. All right folks. Up next we are talking Ospreys so don't fly away.

Speaker
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*Transition Music.

Rachel
Well a few weeks ago I had a new visitor fly over my house. I was pretty excited to see this large shadow cast across my backyard, and I looked up to see an Osprey, which I live super inland in Kalamazoo. I was not expecting to have an Osprey flying over my house. It's the first time we've seen it kind of in the area, especially over suburbia. And so it made me want to dig a little bit deeper into why I might be seeing an Osprey in the area, and also learn a little bit more about these super cool birds.

Eric
They are pretty cool. I like Osprey, we used to have when I was in high school decades ago. It feels weird to say decades.

Rachel
Yeah, we just went to my husband's 25th class reunion and he was wrestling with the the number 25 a little bit.

Eric
I'm almost a 30 now. 

Rachl
Ooo.

Eric
But yeah, but we had an osprey nest at our high school.

Rachel
Nice. 

Eric
Yeah. 

Rachel
Okay. So you were close to the lake shore.

Eric
Yeah, they're pretty cool. Yeah.

Rachel
That's awesome. Did you get to see the little osprey chicks?

Eric
I mean, we couldn't climb up there. Anything like that. You could tell there was activity going on and that the nest was in use, but.

Rachel
They didn't have a voluntary tribute student to go climb the telephone pole and carefully look in the nest and to see how many eggs there were.

Eric
No, no.

Rachel
And it makes sense that you have them in that part of the state because they are water birds, for sure. So these ospreys, like big open water or stretches of river, mostly because they're fish eaters. Did you know 99% of an ospreys diet is made of fish?

Eric
Oh, here they come. They're a fish eater.

Rachel
It's very nice. I thought you were going to start singing the band phish.

Eric
Yeah. Nope. Not yeah, not really a fan.

Rachel
Well, okay. Who sings maneater?

Eric
I don't know, that's a good question.

Rachel
I need to know the lyrics. 

Eric
Yeah. 

Rachel
Yes. They certainly enjoy a lot of fish and they have some pretty unique adaptations that help them to catch those fish. If you've never seen an osprey, here's what you need to look for it. Ospreys are really large raptors, so they're about the size of a bald eagle. But you see these around water just a little bit more than you typically do eagles. And because they're raptors it means they eat live animals. And as we just mentioned they're big fish eaters. Ospreys are brown and white with these dark bodies and an underbelly that is mostly white. But the trademark feature you can look for is this mask like black stripe that runs across their face and across their bright yellow eyes. So large bird brown and white feathers, shockingly yellow eyes. You are looking at an osprey, Now, we mentioned that 99% of their diet is fish. These birds are also known as fish hawks, which makes sense. And they have these incredible adaptations that have made it so they can catch fish really effectively.

Eric
What kind of adaptations might those be?

Rachel
Oh, I'm so glad you asked. Well, first of all, they had these rough, spiky pads on the bottom of their feet to help them to grip the slippery fish. But they also have reversible outer toes so they can rotate one of their four toes backwards, which allows them to have two talons in the front and two talons behind. To be able to more securely grip a fish. And I mean fish are fast, right? These birds have to be faster, so they have an incredible speed and they can see into the water. So they primarily are feeding over waters that are more clear and not murky waters, because they need to be able to see down into the water to see these fish, to then fly, feet first and snag the fish out of the water with its reversible toes. Additionally, they have oily plumage, so water is able to just move off of their feathers quickly and they have a third eyelid. So they have a transparent knitting membrane that basically acts like goggles under the water, so that they can keep their eyes open to see what's under the water, while still moving really quickly and not damaging their eyesight. And get this, when ospreys do hit the water, they're able to close their nostrils to keep water out. And then once the osprey has snagged the fish, it then kind of struggles back up into the air. But it's usually able to turn the fish head first in its claws so that it reduces the drag from the fish. So it's basically carrying the fish like a little torpedo as it flies back to a perch or a nest, so it can have its well earned meal. And if there are bald eagles in the area, which are known to be very cunning and clever, they will take note of where ospreys live and fish, and have success in catching that meal. And so they've learned to harass ospreys to steal their catch. But fortunately ospreys are pretty maneuverable and they don't give up their meals that easily. And so they usually able to outrun bald eagles.

Eric
Yeah. You know, think about it that the amount of energy that is expended to fly around spire to fish, dive down into the water, grab that fish. And then you think about the amount of power needed to then become airborne again, only to have that meal stolen. That's an incredible amount of energy expended to get nothing.

Rachel
Right. Well, said Eric, as we mentioned, ospreys are always found near water, and in Michigan that can mean a long, shallow lakes, rivers, marshes, Great lakes coast. I'm pretty sure I saw the osprey fly over my house in Kalamazoo because I live about three miles from the Kalamazoo River, and I'm pretty sure that there is a nest along the river body there, so it is a stretch for it to come three miles inland, but it could have very well been scoping out new places to nest or other bodies of water. And that's why it happened to fly over my suburb. Ospreys will nest on top of big dead trees. But nowadays we don't often have a lot of big dead trees available for ospreys to nest on. So they have adapted to use, as Eric mentioned, telephone poles or large platforms, utility poles, cell phone towers. These manmade tall structures are often where ospreys can be found nesting in this southern Michigan urban area. So to accommodate the nesting requirements the ospreys need, both the Michigan DNR and partners have installed nesting platforms in many wetlands and lake shores to encourage ospreys to live in those natural habitats. And a really good example of this if you want to observe ospreys nesting is at the Pointe Mouillee State Game Area in Monroe County, which is about 4,000 acres of wetlands on Lake Erie. It is an incredible wetland complex, but it has become an osprey hotspot, with multiple nesting pairs in recent years. So if you want to check out or have your best chance at seeing a super cool interaction with nesting pairs and seeing ospreys on their nest, check out the Pointe Mouillee State Game Area. Michigan Osprey are migratory, which means they come and go. They spend the breeding season here and then they head south for winter, usually wintering in the Florida Everglades or sometimes a little bit farther south into the Caribbean or South America. Now, come late March or April, those adults will return to Michigan from their wintering grounds, and that's when they arrive here. It's often the males that arrive first, and they will get to work fixing up the home for the arrival of the female. They are the primary nest builders and amazingly, they will return to a nest year after year. Those nests are usually made up of just really large stick structures, interwoven into a nice platform for the two adults, and hopefully some chicks to nest in.

Eric
Yeah, those nests really is a human. I look at them and I'm like, I say to myself, that does not look comfortable. It would be like sleeping on a bed of sticks, which sounds less than desirable to me.

Rachel
Right? Well, instead of I mean, we are the DNR, should we be providing them ultra plush California king beds on nesting platforms to see if they perhaps prefer those?

Eric
Yeah I don't know, I just feel like there would be something softer they could they could use. Right.

Rachel
Perhaps dead fish carcasses, perhaps.

Eric
Oh yeah. Fish bones. Those would be nice and cozy.

Rachel
The ambiance of the fish smell and bones. Now, when the female arrives to the nest, the pair will reunite because ospreys are pair bonded for life. And once they do reunite, they'll just continue to add sticks to the existing nest. Just to give it a little bit of zhuzh and refurbish it a little bit, and then they'll just continue to have clutches of eggs. So between late April and May, the female will lay about 2 to 4 eggs, and both parents will take turns incubating those eggs for about five weeks. By middle summer, those osprey chicks will then have that downy fluffs, and they'll start to grow into juvenile feathers and begin to take their first flights. And they learn how to fly by watching mom and dad, so they'll watch the parents dive and soar. And then by late summer, those young ospreys are finally strong enough to start embarking on first flight and even their first fall migration. As is the case with so many wildlife species, it is survival of the fittest. And when it comes time for migration, the parents migrate separately and leave the juveniles behind to fend for themselves. The young birds have to figure out how to navigate to the wintering grounds all by their own, only to be guided by instinct. They'll spend a couple of years down south so they will not return for their first summer migration. They'll spend a few years down south and then eventually instinct will guide them back north.

Eric
It'll be interesting to see, and I'm sure there's probably already researchers that are looking into this sort of thing with our conversation with Chris earlier, talking about how climate change and how the shifting of seasons and weather patterns and everything else might change or interrupt different bird migrations and things of that nature.

Rachel
Yeah, it will be really interesting to see. I mean, we've known that things migrate differently depending on temperatures, right? That's how we ended up with opossums in Michigan. It got warmer here. They started to move north. We're seeing that with armadillos right now. They're starting to move farther north than from the southern states. So it certainly seems like it's very likely for bird migrations and bird populations to change their geographic locations as well. Ospreys have quite the conservation success story here. Similarly to bald eagles, these birds were once very common throughout the state, but by the mid 20th century they were in some very serious trouble due to pesticides such as DDT, which was widely used in World War Two and traveled up the food chain and caused birds like ospreys or eagles or peregrine falcons to lay eggs with really thin shells that often broke. Because of that, osprey numbers totally plummeted, and with these weakening eggs, the chicks just couldn't survive. By the 1960s, ospreys had largely vanished from southern Michigan, and they were mostly only found in really remote northern lakes. And for example, there was just 51 osprey nests recorded in all of Michigan in 1965. However, DDT was banned in 1972 thanks to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Great book, great name. Those raptor populations slowly began to recover in the north, but ospreys were still pretty scarce in the Lower Peninsula, so in 1998, the Michigan DNR in a whole coalition of partners from federal to state to local to certain zoos, they started an osprey reintroduction program to boost ospreys in southern Michigan. And to do that, they took chicks from healthier populations in northern Michigan and then very carefully relocated them to parks in southern Michigan. And this program went on for nearly ten years, from 1998 to 2007, and was hugely successful. So to put that into perspective, in southern Michigan, they had just one active osprey nest in 1999. But after this program, by 2012, there were 49 active nests in southern Michigan, and as of today, ospreys are nesting in dozens of counties statewide, and they report from 2020, noted that there are over 200 osprey nests across Michigan.

Rachel
There's about 125 of them in northern Michigan, and about 65 of them here in the southern Lower Peninsula. So truly a remarkable conservation success story. And ospreys were actually removed from Michigan's threatened species list a few years ago because of this rebound. And they are now listed as a species of special concern in the State Wildlife Action Plan, which means that they're not legally endangered, but we're still monitoring them closely. A couple quick facts about ospreys one they're world travelers. So not only can you see Ospreys here in Michigan, but they are found on every continent except Antarctica. Two, they typically live between 10 to 15 years, though there is one famous osprey in Michigan known by his bands number of C-09 that was recorded at 21 years old. And lastly, a note on the size of those nests. Over time, they can become about five feet across and 2 to 3ft deep. Well, that's a wrap for our Osprey chat. A true comeback kid of Michigan's wild bird world. From near disappearance in parts of the state to truly thriving today, ospreys can remind us that with a little bit of help, wildlife can rebound and really thrive.

Speaker 
3,300 miles of Great Lakes shoreline, 11,000 inland lakes, 56,000 miles of rivers and streams. Fish, too many to count. All you need to do is grab your gear, buy your fishing license and get out there. Get your Michigan fishing license in store in the Michigan DNR Hunt Fish app or online at Michigan.gov/DNRLicenses.

*Transition Music

Rachel
Now it's time to dig into, unintended, a furry little Michigan critter. Today we are unearthing some facts about the American Badger.

Eric
Don't badger me with your badger words.

Rachel
I wouldn't be surprised if that phrase came from the American badger, because they I mean, I picture them as like solitary little grumpy dudes. Like they don't want to be messed with. They don't want to mess with nobody. The mind in their own business, they're hydrated, moisturize, staying in their own lane, you know?

Eric
Yeah. And then someone comes in like, messes with them and they're just really upset about it. Yeah.

Rachel
Well, now I got to bite your foot off. Why do you do this? Just kidding.

Eric
They do look a little vicious.

Rachel
They do. And for good reason. They have three inch long nails, mostly made for digging. But wildlife is wild. Michigan is home to these stocky little digging machines, though many folks have actually never seen them in the wild. They are often nocturnal and very secretive, but they're out there, often in prairies, mostly farm fields or in sandy soils. Places like Northeast Michigan, where there is a lot of sand, they can be found there after dark or on the hunt for underground prey. I have never seen a badger in Michigan. I desperately want to my. Like I've mentioned, my husband is an ecologist, so he spends a lot of time outside looking for rare plants. He's never even seen one and he has walked way more miles than most people do out there. But he has smelled them, so they have a real muskyness to them. Yeah, and if the wind is just right, and if it hits one of their dens where they have been burrowed, it's got a lot of musky, pungent smell. You can smell it on the wind.

Eric
Yeah. I find that woodchucks also kind of smell. Their dens also are quite foul and awful. What's interesting is I also have never seen a badger in the wild, but we've had some people send in photos over the years of what they think is a wolverine. And they're like, I saw, I saw this wolverine. It's like, no, that's a that's a badger.

Rachel
Absolutely. Yeah. Most people in Michigan will never see badgers. And that's nothing to be embarrassed about. I mean, they're entirely designed to not be seen. So when you do see them, you wouldn't immediately think badger. We don't talk about badgers a lot. You would think wolverine because we're the wolverine state. Like, you know, it's a large critter on the ground, kind of big. Of course you think it's a wolverine, but that's because it's a badger. So if ospreys are specialists for fish, badgers are specialists for burrowed prey. So they eat critters that are under the ground. They are carnivores through and through, in the number one item on the badgers menu are rodents and small mammals that live underground. This includes woodchucks or groundhogs or whistle pigs, whatever your preferred term is for those animals. It also includes ground squirrels, mice, voles, chipmunks, moles, all of those little underground critters digging around, probably being hunted by a badger. Badgers are incredibly strong diggers. They can dig burrows that are about 30ft long, but they've also been known to dig out a tunneled rodent in a matter of a minute, using their powerful forelimbs to break through the soil, and in the process, they turn up a lot of dirt. They're almost like a mini excavator trying to hunt for food, but they don't stop at just rodents. They also will prey on rabbits if they can ambush one or ground nesting birds, they'll even eat snakes, often venomous ones. There is lots of badgers out west and they will take up rattlesnakes, but they'll also feed on toads, frogs, lizards, insects. Basically. If they can find it and catch it, it's probably going to eat it.

Eric
I feel like that's a lot of wildlife opportunistic feeders.

Rachel
Protein is protein, you know, you got to get it when you can. But interestingly, badgers can also cache food. So if they do come across a surplus or more food than they need at that certain time, then they will store a carcass or a piece of meat underground in a little snack layer so that they've got their burrows, and then like little snack shelf where they put all their surplus of food. But because they are excavators and they're moving so much soil out of the ground where look where they're creating these burrows, that digging also means that they are aerating the soil. They're creating micro habitats and often creating habitat for other ground dwelling critters, for animals like foxes or skunks, which really can't dig out their own burrows, but if they come across them, will happily move into those places once the badger has left them behind. So we've all seen the "honey badger don't care" video.

Eric
If you haven't, just be aware there's a little bit of salty language with that video.

Rachel
Yes.

Eric
But badgers don't care and they eat their prey unsalted, so.

Rachel
Yes, badgers have a well earned reputation for being fierce when threatened. Generally they will avoid conflict and stay underground or lay low if there are humans that are present. But if cornered or grabbed, a badger will defend itself. It'll snarl or growl or show its impressive sharp teeth or its claws. And also, badgers have a lot of loose skin, so if a predator does grab them and say it bites a badger, well the loose skin allows it to twist around inside its own skin and then bite back. So basically, if you imagine having like a sweatshirt on, that's three times too big for you and someone grabs the sleeve, you still have room to move within that sweatshirt so you can, like, turn around and throw an elbow and get out of that situation. Badgers can do the same. They are tough little critters and they are built like a brick. They have this built in armor that also grants them some flexibility. So with thick fur and skin, they can take really blunt bites or injuries or being scratched and still kind of move on as if nothing has happened. As we mentioned, they are kind of stinky. They can emit this musky, skunk like odor from their glands, which is primarily used to deter enemies, which does in fact work. If things stink, nobody wants to deal with it, let's be honest. And while they can't spray as potently as a skunk, it is enough to make a predator think twice. Here in Michigan, the badger is not listed as a threatened or endangered species, and is instead considered to have a pretty stable population. In fact, here they're classified as a furbearer, which means they can be legally harvested under a regulated season. Licensed for trappers can trap one badger per year, and the seasons are set by zones. In the Upper Peninsula and then in the northern Lower Peninsula  badger trapping season runs from October 15th to November 15th every year. And here in the southern Lower Peninsula, where badgers are a bit more common, the season runs longer from November 1st all the way through March 1st. Only Michigan residents are allowed to trap badger, and the bag limit is one per trapper. If you're interested in learning more about trapping badgers or any other fur bear species we have in Michigan, you can learn more at michigan.gov/trapping.

Rachel
A couple cool facts about badgers. First of all, badgers are famously tough. They've been known to fight off animals much larger than themselves. If cornered, badgers will not hesitate to use their 18 sharp teeth if needed. Another cool fact, badgers are members of the Musteloidea family, which we mentioned, they have a musky smell. That's because they're part of the musky family, also known as the weasel family. So this makes them cousins with wolverines, weasels, otters, minks, and skunks to name a few. These are all categorized as a family because they have those scent glands that excrete a foul smelling odor. And there you have it. The American badger, a seldom seen but super interesting resident of Michigan's outdoors. They're amazing diggers. They have quite the feisty attitude and they are one of nature's toughest little mammals. I hope that you and I both are lucky enough to see one of them. Someday. It would be a spectacular sighting.

Speaker
Are you looking for first class waterfowl hunting opportunities? Then explore the wetland wonders. The seven premier managed waterfowl hunt areas located in southern Michigan. Daily drawings are conducted locally for free hunting zone permits throughout the season, consisting of over 27,000 acres of managed waterfowl habitat, including marsh, flooded crops and dry land. The wetland wonders are the destination for new and experienced waterfowl alike. Find out more about a high quality outdoor recreational experience at michigan.gov/wetlandwonders.

Rachel
Now is your opportunity to win a WildTalk Podcast mug, as a thank you to our listeners will be giving away a mug or two every episode. This month's question was: What bird family are the Common nighthawks in? Now, the answer we were looking for is Caprimulgidae, and the winners are Bailey, Drendell, and Brian. Brian didn't give us the last name, but that's okay because we have your email. Congratulations. Bailey and Brian will be reaching out to you soon to make sure you get your WildTalk podcast mugs. Now to be entered into the drawing this month and to test your wildlife knowledge, answer our wildlife quiz question. This month's question is now. As we mentioned, osprey feet are adapted for fishing. In fact, they have those rough spiky pads on the bottom of their feet. What is the technical term for those rough spiky pads? Email your name and answer to us at DNR-Wildlife@michigan.gov. To be entered for a chance to win a mug, be sure to include the subject line as 'Mug Me' and submit your answers by August 15th. We'll announce winners and the answers on next month's podcast, so be sure to listen in and to see if you've won. Good luck everyone!

Speaker
Michigan Conservation Officers are working hard to protect and keep the outdoors safe for current and future generations. If you witness a natural resources violation, you can call or text the Report All Poaching hotline 24 hours a day at 1-800-292-7800, or fill out the complaint form available at michigan.gov/RAP. If you would like more information and becoming a conservation officer, click on become a CO at michigan.gov/conservationofficers.

Rachel
Well, thank you for joining us on this August edition of the WildTalk Podcast. Remember, if you have questions about wildlife or hunting, you can call (517) 284-9453 or email us at DNR-Wildlife@michigan.gov. We'll see you back here in September.

Speaker
This has been the WildTalk Podcast, your monthly podcast airing the first of each month and offering insights into the world of wildlife across the state of Michigan. You can reach the Wildlife Division at (517) 284-9453 or DNR-wildlife@michigan.gov.