Snow insect, mouse and woodpecker sighted at Ann Arbor's Black Pond

Black Pond - January 14, 2010

Stefan Szumko | Contributor

It’s been an exciting week at Black Pond, just north of the Leslie Science and Nature Center. The week started out cold in the teens and warmed up to above freezing by then end.

On my first visit on Sunday, January 10, the snow crunched under foot. At what temperature does snow become crunchy? Apparently, this number is difficult to measure precisely. But the rule of thumb is that the louder the crunch, the lower the snow temperature. The National Snow and Ice Data Center has some great information about winter precipitation.

Weather observations for the week, recorded at Rudolf Steiner High School, 300 meters from Black Pond.

As I walked along the path to the pond, I considered the old saying that the Eskimo-Aleut family of languages has a great number of words for snow. Thank goodness I looked this one up, because this “factoid” is an urban legend.

According to the linguist, Geoffrey Pullum, in his essay about the Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax, the simple answer is that there are 2 words for snow used by Eskimo-language speakers: “qanik” - describing snow in the air, and “aput” - describing snow on the ground. The confusion causing this urban legend resulted from the fact there are several languages or dialects used by those described as Eskimos, and that in each of these languages compound words are created using various modifiers to a root word.

Thinking on this topic, how many words and phrases describing snow or frozen precipitation do we use in English? Snow, snowflake, snow drift, blowing and drifting snow, snow pile, snow pack, snow storm, #$@%ing snow, blizzard, white out, sleet, ice, frost, rime, hail, powdery snow, snow patch, avalanche,…I could go on, but looked up this list of 120 English words for snow/ice instead.

Anyway…back to the pond

The mouse living at the pond has been expanding its range, traveling across the pond and up the hill, most likely in search of food. What species of mouse is it? It is either a white-footed mouse, the most common mouse in the deciduous woods of the eastern U.S. and is usually a solitary creature. Or it is deer mouse, which is also common in the eastern U.S. and is solitary during the winter months, but may nest with a few others in this season.

We’ll keep on looking for signs of this critter over the next few weeks. Feel free to suggest names for this furry creature either by leaving a comment below this article or by e-mailing me at slugwhisperer@gmail.com by Saturday, January 23 at midnight. Should we get a few suggestions, we’ll set up a poll next week to see which name wins.

At least one woodpecker was heard tapping on a tree. My young assistant’s attention span did not permit time for a visual observation. We’ll keep our eyes and ears open during upcoming visits.

An insect on top of the snow at Black Pond on January 14, 2010.

Stefan Szumko | Contributor

The warm, winter temperatures (above freezing) at the end of this week have brought out various winter insects throughout Ann Arbor. But only one was observed at Black Pond during my visits. On Thursday, as soon as we stopped to film the overview scene above the pond, Jameson, age 3, stated that he “saw an ant.” Sure enough, there was a small ant-like insect on top of the snow. Unless I hear otherwise, we’re gonna call this a gall wasp, of the insect family, Cynipidae. Classified in the order, Hymenoptera, gall wasps are related to ants. These insects hatch from underground galls on oak roots, gall wasps are wingless and reproduce without males.

We’ll keep on looking for critters and the seasonal changes at the Black Pond this week. Will the mouse be back? Will all the snow and ice melt? Will there be more winter insects appearing?

Stefan Szumko is a middle school science teacher by trade, an outdoor environmental educator by calling, and a homedaddy by choice. He can be reached at slugwhisperer@gmail.com.