Biodiversity in Minnesota

Samuel Sellers

Common Loon

• Males are slightly larger than females, this bird is smaller than a goose and larger than a mallard duck. The bird weighs 8 to 12 pounds when it is fully grown. It has a black bill and red eyes it has a dark greenish black head and in the summer its body is black with white spots, in the winter its top is a shade of gray and its bottom is white.

• Loons don’t begin breeding until three to four years old. They build their nest on the outside of reeds and grasses on the water edge. They take turns incubating the eggs and then after 28 to 30 days the chicks start to emerge, the chicks are blackish brown and take a swim not long after they hatch. Young loons don’t fly until they are two months or older. The parents will carry the chicks on their backs for protection from fish and turtle predators.

• Loons eat pan fish, perch, ciscoes, suckers, trout, bullheads smelt and minnows. They also eat frogs, leaches, crayfish, mollusks, salamanders, amphipods, and insects.

• Adult loons are only venerable to bald eagles, but their young are venerable to skunks, raccoons, foxes, snapping turtles, northern pike and muskies.

• Loons are found on lakes in central and northeastern Minnesota. About September loons travel to their winter home along the Atlantic coast, from North Carolina to Florida or in the Gulf of Mexico.

• Minnesota has more loons than all the states except Alaska. Roughly 12,000.

• Human disturbance and pollutants like lead and mercury are bad for the loons and will not allow them to last very long.

• Loons have no season, they are a protected bird, which means that there is no season to kill them.

Fun facts about loons

• Loons will dive up to 250 feet to retrieve their food.

• Loons have solid bones, unlike the hollow bones of other birds.

• The extra weight of their bones helps them dive down as far as 250 feet.

• Loons need a 100 to 600 foot runway to take off.

• Male loon http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6137/6005198729_1088e760cf_z.jpg female loon

http://www.loon.org/assets/images/AboutLoons_summer_P&G.jpg

White tailed deer

• Large brown or gray mammal with a white tail that lifts when alarmed or running. 4 to 6 feet long, 2 to 3 feet tall with a 6 to 12 inch tail

• Males weigh 100 to 300 pounds. Females weigh 85 to 130 pounds

• Reddish brown in summer, grayish brown in winter

• Snorts, grunts or bleats

• November to December, fawns are born 7 months later. Fawns have white spots that last from 3 to 4 months, remain nursing with their mother for several months. Males travel long distances in search of females during mating season, they scrape trees and patches on the ground where they urinate to tell others that it is not their territory.

• White tailed deer eat acorns, corn, soybeans, mushrooms, grasses, tree leaves, buds, twigs and bark, wild grapes, apples and assorted shrubs.

• Wolves, coyotes, bear, and bobcats hunt and eat whit tailed deer.

• White-tailed deer live in prairies, forests, swamps, wood lots and agricultural fields.

• In Minnesota there are 900,000 to 1,000,000 deer.

• Hunters harvest around 150,000 to 200,000 deer a year.

Fun facts about white tailed deer

• When alarmed white tailed deer fan their ears and raise their tails as though raising a white flag.

• The white tailed deer's white tail raises when they are running.

• They can be a nuisance to farmers eating grain they have stored for other live stock.

• Male white tailed deer loose their antlers in the winter and grow them back in the late summer and early fall.

male http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/White-tailed_deer.jpg/220px-White-tailed_deer.jpgFemale http://www.statesymbolsusa.org/IMAGES/Illinois/whitetail_deer_lg.jpg

Fawnhttp://www.manitowoc.org/images/pages/N879//white_tailed_deer_reprod%5B1%5D.jpg

Rat snake

42 to 72 inches long, upper part is black with blotches of yellow or white. Belly is gray or brown with yellow or white diffusions. Lives in moist forest, woodland animal.http://www.amybartlettwright.com/images/snake_t.jpg http://www.demotix.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/a_scale_large/400-5/photos/1300990513-rat-snakes%27-combat-dance_432225.jpg

Fun facts

• Longest known rat snake was 101 inches long• Female will lay 5 to 44 eggs• Rat snakes are not venomous but will hurt

when they bite.

willow

• large when growing along streams and other moist places, dwarfed shrubs when growing on drier sites. Some trees are often 35 to 50 feet high with a diameter of 6 to 24 inches.

• Dark brown to gray on large trees; thick, rough, furrowed, and flaky.

• Very narrow leaves with finely toothed margins and are shiny green on both sides.

• Fun fact: ruins lawn mowers

• Tree http://www.varietybackyard.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Willow-Tree-002.jpg

• Bark http://www.cambridge2000.com/gallery/images/P5156716.jpg

• Fruit http://

www.aphotoflora.com/images/rosaceae/pyrus_salicifolia_willow_leaved_pear_tree_fruit_19-08-11_1.jpg

• Seeds http://www.morning-earth.org/Graphic-E/BIOSPHERE/PLANTIMAGE/DISPERSAL/SEEDS%20&%

20PODS/willowseed34.jpg

• Leaves http://www.hccnursery.com/ebay/P108_12.jpg

Fire weed

• Native perennial to 5'. Pink flowers with 4 round petals form on a tall, conspicuous spike which blooms from the bottom up. Common along roadsides mid to late summer. Stems are covered with alternate, willow-like leaves. The common name is derived from its responsive growth after fires.

• Fun fact: Fireweed is often one of the first species to colonize newly exposed areas.

• http://www.maliasrv.com/IMAGES/AlaskaReturnImages/Fireweed/FireweedMid.jpg