A production of: Nature Scene is made possible in part by grants from: Helping sustain Nature Scene for the past four years.

Santee Cooper where protection and improvement of our environment are equal in importance to providing electric energy.

And by viewers like you.

Members of the ETV Endowment of South Carolina.

♪ easy flowing music ♪ Hello, and welcome to Nature Scene with naturalist Rudy Mancke.

I'm Jim Welch and we're at Agassiz National Wildlife Refuge in northwestern Minnesota.

61,500 acres of lakes, marsh, bogs and upland forest.

It was named after Louis Agassiz who came here in 1848 to Harvard University, really to start his natural history departments.

And he was a naturalist, uh, like I'm a naturalist dabbling in this, that and the other.

One of his early interests was freshwater fishes but he later became intrigued with glaciers and their action in Europe.

And he came to the United States looking for sign of glacial activity here and, of course, found it all over the northern part of the United States and on into Canada.

And really, glaciers have shaped the land here really only a few thousand years ago.

But when you come to Northwestern Minnesota-- and Jim, just turn around and take a look at the marsh behind us and the lay of the land-- it's very, very flat.

You can see great distances.

And it is flat because of glacial activity-- ice moving down really just a few thousand years ago and scraping the land and modifying it.

And of course, you can imagine when the ice was here it was scraping things.

When the ice melted it formed impoundments, oftentimes, of water and one of the largest of those was Lake Agassiz named after Louis Agassiz.

And this pool is what remains today.

This is one of the little standing areas that was really once the bottom of that tremendous lake-- 200,000 square miles of surface area-- tremendous, on up into canada down a little further into the united states.

These wetlands that are here today are very, very interesting because there are not many of them left.

And one of the things that has happened for a good while is that man has been modifying the prairie-- and this was really tallgrass prairie for a long time with just little impoundments here and there.

Waterfowl used those.

We've changed them and that's why refuges like this are so very important.

We're going to see a lot of diversity here as you've mentioned.

Let's just head on down the road and see what comes up next.

♪ Lake Agassiz formed about 12,000 years ago and drained away about 3,000 years ago, Jim and there was a lot of peat that built up on the bottom so the base of this marsh area is peat.

Spongy.

Spongy kind of feeling.

And fire has been used by man in this area for a long time-- the indians first to get to the animals, of course and run them out of the marsh-- and it's used as a control mechanism for shrubs on this wildlife refuge.

But sometimes it gets away and you see it came through here-- wildfire, changing all of these cattails.

Of course, the underground stem on the cattail will allow it come right back up.

But you can feel that peaty, you know, feeling-- spongy kind of feeling-- right here in front of us.

The peat itself could burn underneath the ground for a long time.

Sometimes there are peat burns here and you end up having rounded, scooped-out areas on this open prairie marsh and that's from areas that... Where the peat burned for a long time.

Look at the little frog right down here.

Oh, what kind is that?

One of the wood frogs.

Look at the dark blotch right behind the eye almost like a mask that it's wearing.

And that's a typical species in the northern part of the united states and loves, of course, marshy situations-- one of the amphibians, spending time in the water and also some time out of the water probably warming up.

It's about an inch long.

Will it get larger?

Yeah, it'll get a lot larger.

That's just a young animal.

And one other thing-- when you've got the marsh burned things are more obvious.

Pair of Canada geese.

Oh, yeah, with a white cheek patch.

Down there... Oh, yeah, very distinctive.

And pairs-- now, that's very mzportant because, here...

Here, you see these animals are not migrating through.

They've come back and are nesting here.

And so they're paired off-- look at that.

One of them-- look at the one on the left there-- has a band on the neck, that bluish band.

Oh, sure-- you can almost see the number.

Read "h-79" and then "p" or "f" or something like that and studies are done quite often on migratory routes of those birds.

Canada geese... Look at those things.

It's the end of the Mississippi flyway so they will nest here.

Yeah, they'll be nesting here.

We're going to see animals paired off and maybe even building nests this time of year as we go through the refuge.

Big birds-- feeding mainly on plant material.

Rudy, we're close enough to hear them calling.

Yeah, and they're actually, of course communicating to each other.

( honking ) and those honking sounds-- once you've heard them you'll know canada goose talk anytime you hear it.

And this is the season, again to see them paired off and nesting.

We should see a lot of that today.

Is there any difference in sex uh, in terms of color and size?

Not really.

No, there are variations on the size of that species but it's not a sexual difference at all.

Really interesting, though, the way the fire has opened things up and there are lots of things that are more obvious than they would be if the marsh were still in place.

Look what it's uncovered with the antlers... Oh, yeah.

Sticking up among the stalks.

Yeah, the tines on that deer antler almost look like the stalks of these cattails.

Pick that up and let's take a closer look at it.

That's a large population of white-tailed deer.

That's right, Jim.

And this one had good forage because of the size of the antler.

Yeah, good-sized antler, and of course the tines are very thick.

Indians took advantage of these.

They're very useful as tools.

And see the way it twists on down and then very rugged there toward the base with kind of that ring of bone on.

Every male deer grows what, two of these a year, and sheds them and since the population is high we should expect to find quite a few.

That's the left antler from a white-tailed deer.

And it does take a lot of minerals to make that bone and then shed it and you've got to regrow it again the next year.

49 mammals on the resident list here at the refuge-- we should see some live deer.

Oh, yeah, we'll keep our eyes open for them.

I'm sure we've got a good chance of seeing them today.

I see something else coming up the ditch here, Jim.

Look at the pair of ducks.

Oh, yeah.

Blue-winged teal coming along-- male and female again, paired off coming right toward us slowly.

Look at them feeding in the water.

They feed on plant and animal material-- Surface-feeding ducks.

They do a little bit of dabbling, too.

But look at them just coming right toward us and you can see on the male, now-- male is so brightly colored-- that crescent of white on the front of the head.

See that?

Almost a sheen, too, to the feathers-- very pretty.

Oh, yeah, very nice bird and again, the female a little more drab-- less obvious, you know, when nesting occurs.

They don't even seem to notice us.

And really, that's a pretty common bird on the refuge here.

Blue-winged teal because when that thing flies can see bluish-- blue speculum it's called-- on the wing.

But coming right toward us.

Oh, that is fantastic-- turning away a little bit.

and boom!

They're gone, Jim lifting right off.

I think i'll leave this right here.

all right.

Head up the road some.

That's a nice one.

Yeah, let's head up here and hopefully we'll get a little better look at an unburned marsh.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, and this time you see there's another plant out there with the cattails, coming up above and that's a non native plant one of the grasses, called phragmites or sometimes just called reed.

It's cosmopolitan now.

It's all over the world in freshwater and even brackish water, and sometimes salt marshes.

And very tall.

Oh, yeah, and just marching out into the marsh.

So things are changing here as time goes by.

Now, I see-- look way out there.

See the... See the muskrat house that's been built from vegetation?

Oh, yeah.

Letting us know that the muskrats are here.

Get your binoculars up and see-- I think...

Isn't that a, uh... That's a goose!

A canada goose on the top with its head down.

I guess it's got a nest there.

They'll often nest on top of those muskrat houses.

My goodness!

And lying still, I guess so as not to be seen by a predator.

Wow.

( chuckling ) never have seen that before.

But that gets her out of the water, now-- little bit above the water to protect the eggs a little bit more.

And I don't guess the muskrat really minds.

Look in the far distance over there on that other...

I don't know what it's sitting on-- it's on something.

There is a predator that might actually get that Canada goose.

See the great horned owl way in the distance there?

Oh!

Barely see it.

Two little horns-- look at the head swivel around.

Now I see.

That movement gives us a chance to identify it.

But that's a great horned owl that hunts these marshes.

Oh, my goodness-- wow!

Then a little bit closer here, now-- made out of sticks rather than just piles of vegetation-- there's a beaver lodge.

And boy, they change the world, don't they?

Oh, the fur trade, too.

Not only they're changing the world but that's what brought men here in the beginning.

Yeah, they dam up things just like the wildlife refuge people are damming up things to make freshwater impoundments and that's very important for wildlife.

But that animal, yeah, really did change the world in a great variety of ways.

You can see the gnawed ends on those logs.

Feeding on the underside of the bark.

Oh, beautiful views there.

And then the ditch here with a little bit of water in it.

Look at the little bird right up here-- running, running down to the water-- brilliant yellow legs so yellowlegs is the common name for that one.

and that's a greater yellowlegs?

Yeah, that looks like the bigger of the two so it would be a greater yellowlegs coming down to eat mainly invertebrates that it gets out of the water-- long beak.

Picking them off and changing them into yellowlegs.

Up and down it looks like there.

Look at that.

Wow, that's interesting.

Right along the edge of the ditch.

That's a beautiful bird.

Look at the camouflage-- basically just blending right in here in the marsh.

Looks like he sights right down his bill or beak toward the water.

Yeah.

So much to see, why don't we just head on?

♪ relocating ♪ These higher wet places are perfect habitats for shrubby willows.

Quite a few species of willows in here and a few dogwoods.

And sometimes those willows really are strange.

Look at those growths.

And I mean, they're common.

They look almost like they're normal.

But those are galls caused by insects.

I think it's one of the flies that lays eggs in there.

Sometimes that's even called a willow-cone gall because they kind of look like cones.

Rather uniform on some of the willow shrubs.

Yeah... All over.

And this willow is flowering now male flowers on one plant, female flowers on another.

So those are normal, those flowers and early growth.

Some of them appear clipped off, Rudy.

Look at that, yes.

Almost every branch-- something has snipped it off.

Browsers are working in here.

Another one of the deer species.

And I bet that's the work of moose because you see how high it was snipping those things off.

Moose could be 6½ feet at the shoulder.

Matter of fact, look out here.

Bones... Skull!

Oh, boy.

I'm not surprised at all to find material like this because moose are fairly common on this refuge.

Just get this mandible and let's take a look at that first off.

Huge teeth, Rudy, and of course moose is in the deer family.

Absolutely.

This is the largest deer in the world so you would expect a large mandible here and those tremendously large teeth-- kind of sharp surfaces there for grinding plant material.

Notice, too, Jim, that the jaw is not very deep.

It's a rather narrow jaw.

Usually you'd expect a little more bone there.

But that's typical of the deer.

And then down toward the front end down there there is one tooth left.

There used to be three or four.

Those are the incisors that are used for biting off, tearing off oh, browsing, as we saw along the, uh, willows.

I'll let you hold on to that because the skull beckons.

Look at that!

Oh, boy!

And the lower jaw and, of course, now there's the... Oh, tremendous in size here.

Let me just get it turned around.

Vegetation eaters and, uh, grind it up in these huge teeth.

Absolutely.

Look, now, ts is obviously a male.

young male.

You can see the leftovers of those antlers.

Died before the antlers were, uh, shed.

And again, the size-- I mean, no question about what this is from.

Look, too, at these nasal bones, Jim.

You see these bones right up here on the front end?

Mm-hmm.

See how short they are?

And designed for what purpose?

Usually they would go much further.

That's where the nose now extends.

But the nose is very, very flexible.

Most deer, they'd come way out to here.

But on the moose they're very, very short nasal bones.

That helps us identify it.

And then looking in the front you were talking about the teeth.

There are no teeth on the front of the skull at all so the tongue and the lips are involved in tearing off a lot of that vegetation... And the teeth on that lower jaw.

Let's turn this over slowly here.

Tremendous... Teeth!

Look at those things!

Again, a tremendously large animal.

Hopefully we'll be able to see one of these alive.

But this is the right habitat for them.

I've seen cow skulls out on the prairies.

That's a good way to... That's similar-- it is.

That is the size of a cow skull, yes.

Big, big species of deer.

Leave that right there for a minute.

Thought I saw some movement right here in the willows, Jim.

Look right here, look right here.

Oh, it's camouflaged in the... Can't even see it.

Kind of moving or looking away from us.

And there is a young moose doing its thing.

And look, as it lifts up you can see that long face on it-- we were talking about that a moment ago-- and then browsing.

Not grazing on the ground, but browsing branches nding that thing over.

You can see the willow branch going over and just snipping off the end of that and all of that new growth.

Big animal and really doesn't seem to be bothered by us even though we're standing fairly close to it.

They can weigh up from 1,000 to 1,200 pounds fully grown.

This is a great habitat for them.

Oh, it's perfect and this would be the exact place that you would expect to see them.

Changing plant into animal right there before our very eyes.

Of course, this is the southern edge of where moose would be found.

You wouldn't find them any further south than along here.

Yeah, it's interesting when you can get this close to a mammal that size, isn't it?

Open field over here.

Let's check that out next.

Here we are in middle May.

It's late spring, and yet, Rudy here in the northern part of the United States it's really just beginning.

Yeah, this is a nice time of the year to be out.

And this is a nice place to be, see-- on the ecotone, the edge of a forest and then this wide-open area here.

And I don't think we're going to have to stand here long.

Look at all the action over here.

Yellow-headed blackbirds-- perfect name.

First time i've ever seen a bird like that!

Aren't they glorious?

The only bird in North America with that yellow front and the rest black.

And those are basically all males.

You can see, tilting down getting something to eat out there.

And then when they fly look at the white on the wings that you would normally not see.

That's typical of the males.

You wouldn't find that on the females.

Even the immature males don't have that.

Whole group of males and look at the way they fly!

It's almost as if it's one organism, not many, but one big one moving around.

Fantastic.

Beautiful to watch.

They'll be staking out territories in the marsh to start nesting pretty soon.

Right on the edge of the... Oh, a little ground squirrel.

13-lined ground squirrel is the common name for that one sitting up and looking at us.

Moving along.

Look how almost like snakelike when he moves.

Number of stripes on the back not really 13 but you know, we don't want to be too picky about it.

But one of te squirrels, now that does live on the ground, burrows in.

And then sitting up and looking at us on the edge.

Watch for predators.

If I were him, I'd be watching for predators.

He's a cute little fellow.

But look way beyond there to the massive crane-- the sandhill crane.

Sandhill cranes in the distance out there finding meals.

Now, they'll eat small vertebrates like that little ground squirrel sometimes believe it or not.

But they're getting invertebrates, probably in the field.

Brown ones are immature.

The mature ones are that gray color.

Long legs.

Pretty common to see them in numbers and again, they'll be separating soon to, uh... To begin to nest.

Huge bird, and Agassiz's a good place to see them.

Yeah, absolutely.

So much here.

I was just noticing a little bit of movement up on the willows.

On the willow flower see the mourning cloak butterfly?

Getting a little bit of nectar.

Tattered wings.

Now, they overwinter as adults.

So that one's, you know, a pretty old individual coming out in the warming sunshine in the spring and finding a meal.

Here is something I don't believe because I know that animal.

But it's in a tree!

I've never seen that in my life-- a woodchuck or groundhog in a tree-- and look what it's eating!

Again, coming to the willows.

The new growth.

Not eating so much the shoots but eating the buds and the new leaves.

My goodness.

I've seen them many tim.

This is the western edge of the woodchuck range.

Right.

Normally on the ground but they like leaves.

But you just don't expect them up high.

That's the largest member of the squirrel family.

And I guess, in that sense we expect him to be up in a tree sometime but I've never seen him there.

Reddish on the underside black tail and black feet.

And look at the way he uses his hands maneuver that material in.

Interesting.

Surprises all over the place.

Look on the ground right here.

I don't believe it!

We've been looking past it.

We got to take a look at that now.

That is something I hoped to find and we didn't expect to find.

Jim, pick that up.

Oh, wow, they shed these between december and february... Moose antler.

They drop off.

Oh, boy, isn't that nice!

This is a very heavy antler.

( laughing ): and they need it.

It's the left antler, Jim.

Look at it-- the way it used to sit, basically right in that position.

this aiming forward that peeling around-- that palmate part of the antler peeling around behind the head of the animal.

Makes a whitetail antler look so small.

Yeah, well, you remember that one earlier.

It looks very small compared to this one but again, this is the largest member of the deer family and the antler proves that without doubt.

It is hard to hold that in that position with one hand.

There is something very exciting about finding.

Oh, yeah.

Something like this.

the size of that thing, really, in the spread it's... Never had one in my hands before.

That's interesting.

Wow.

Let's put it right back down here for now.

Look at our moose, now.

He's back out looking at us.

Oh, yeah!

better view now with those big ears-- mulelike ears sticking down-- and that long face in the background of the willows.

That's perfect habitat for that animal.

So much to see here.

This is one area.

Let's head up to a little higher area with some more woods to look at.

♪ relocating ♪ Beautiful, beautiful blue sky, spring day.

Interesting woods, too.

When you get on a little bit higher ground here this upland woods is kind of a change of pace.

The white trees... Birch-looking, in fact, aren't they?

They're a birch- looking tree.

They do look like birches but if you look at the leaves-- and the leaves are just coming out on them-- that's one of the poplars.

And the common name for that usually is Quaking Aspen or Trembling Aspen.

And that's the new green this time of year.

that's what you would expect and the light-colored bark.

I even see, uh, Jim, early flowers-- catkins dangling down.

that's in the willow family.

Remember the willows a minute ago.

That's in the willow family so male flowers on one tree female flowers on another.

I notice a little, uh, maple in there-- Box Elder, it's called-- with fresh leaves just coming out.

And then, look at the trees right here.

See the three tall ones going up?

They look like poplars as well.

Large buds.

The flowers are out, but the leaves aren't.

That's Balsam Poplar.

That's the largest of the, uh, northern poplar species and again, just a little slower opening up than the, uh... Than the Quaking Aspen.

Look at the... Look above it.

Red-tailed hawk.

Oh, how beautiful!

Circling up there, red on the tail wings spread, basically not even flapping working that warm rising air and the breeze.

And watching something.

Well, maybe watching...

It looks like kind of looking our way.

Probably a nest somewhere close here.

That is a beautiful bird.

Hover... Oh, I wish I could do that!

And what kind of view does he get of the marsh here?

Feeding mainly on mammals and I guess would be laying eggs fairly soon.

Look right out here, too.

White-tailed deer.

Oh, it sure is.

White-tailed deer.

Little patches of hair pulled up.

Ticks are a big problem with deer and moose here.

That one looks healthy but probably has a few ticks hanging on-- parasite-host relationship.

And since we're standing here this upland woods is kind of interesting because look in the distance-- it changes over there.

Instead of the upland woods you end up seeing now a coniferous forest.

Very dark-looking, uh, spruce-looking tree.

Black Spruce is the common name probably because it is so dark.

And that's spruce tamarack-- bog forest.

Totally different situation there.

Very diverse herbaceous plants and then those two trees dominate.

So the lake becomes bog and the bog becomes a bog forest.

A bog forest, yes.

Nature seems to constantly change one thing into another.

That's an interesting place.

Some open water nearby, though.

Let's take a look at that next.

♪ relocating ♪ Department of the interior has done a beautiful job since the late '30s, I guess when this became a refuge.

Yeah, it's a special place mainly for migratory waterfowl but of course, as we've seen when you have a refuge there are all sorts of other animals that come here, too.

When you get by the open water again...

So much out here, really.

You begin to see so much.

Look at the shovelers in the distance-- big bill, just going around the bend in those marsh grasses and cattails.

And there's a nice one coming out a little bit-- smallest north american duck, green-winged teal.

Male, sort of a cinnamon-colored head little bit of green on it.

That's a nice one, isn't it?

But a small one.

Not as common as the Blue-winged teal.

I see a Canvasback out there, too.

Long neck.

Look at that relatively long neck and the slope of the head going down toward that bill.

That's a beautiful bird.

Male would be redder on the head than that.

That's a Scaup out there also.

Closely related to that Canvasback-- same genus.

Both of those are pretty good divers.

See the white on the back on that one and the darker head.

And the one that's not so showy out there-- the Gadwall.

Pretty interesting bird.

Here and also common in the U.S.S.R., matter of fact.

But not a very showy one in the male.

Diver or dabbler?

Uh, dabbler-- one at the top.

And then I see a Mallard hurrying, again, off but you can see that's a male-- very clearly a drake with that greenish head and ring.

Always so colorful.

And people identify those often.

Hiding, again, in the cattails.

And I see one other strange one-- not really a true duck, one of the grebes.

Red neck on it so Red-necked grebe is the common name.

White blotch on the side of the face.

That's another interesting bird typical of the open water.

Just a brief look at some of the 265 birds that make up the list here at Agassiz National Wildlife Refuge.

Yeah, good bit of diversity here.

And what I love about this place is it's such a nice mix of northern tallgrass prairie, marsh area and then a little bit of the north woods, too.

And that mixture makes it very, very special.

Way up on the most northern part of the United States-- of the contiguous 48 States.

Probably isn't as visited as a lot of the wildlife refuges but there's a lot here to see.

Thanks for being with us here in Northwestern Minnesota and join us again on the next Nature Scene.

♪ calm music ♪ Nature Scene is made possible in part by grants from: he Close Foundation Inc.

Helping sustain Nature Scene for the past four years.

Santee Cooper where protection and improvement of our environment are equal in importance to providing electric energy.

And by viewers like you members of the ETV Endowment of South Carolina.