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Daily Bucket -- A Black Spruce kettle bog says hello to spring [1]
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Date: 2025-05-02
I’ve written two Buckets about Waterloo State Recreation Area’s Black Spruce kettle bog, here (visited June 2022) and here (visited September 2024). I wondered what it looked like in early spring, and decided to find out. My visit ended up being well timed, with lots of new growth and blooms.
THE DAILY BUCKET IS A NATURE REFUGE. WE AMICABLY DISCUSS ANIMALS, WEATHER, CLIMATE, SOIL, PLANTS, WATERS AND NOTE LIFE’S PATTERNS.
WE INVITE YOU TO NOTE WHAT YOU ARE SEEING AROUND YOU IN YOUR OWN PART OF THE WORLD, AND TO SHARE YOUR OBSERVATIONS IN THE COMMENTS BELOW. FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE PURPOSE AND HISTORY OF THE DAILY BUCKET FEATURE, CHECK OUT THIS DIARY: DAILY BUCKET PHENOLOGY: 11 YEARS OF RECORDING EARTH'S VITAL SIGNS IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD
Some background from the first Bucket:
If water in a kettle becomes acidic due to decomposing organic plant matter, it becomes a kettle bog or, if underlying soils are lime-based and neutralize the acidic conditions somewhat, it becomes a kettle peatland. Kettle bogs are closed ecosystems because they have no water source other than precipitation. Acidic kettle bogs and fresh water kettles are important ecological niches for some symbiotic species of flora and fauna. Wikipedia
Black spruce (Picea mariana), also called bog spruce, swamp spruce, and shortleaf black spruce is a wide-ranging, abundant conifer that bounds the northern limit of trees in North America. Its wood is yellow-white in color, relatively light in weight, and strong. Treehugger.com
The Black Spruce Bog at Waterloo has been designated a National Natural Landmark, and
Contains the southerly third of a large black spruce and tamarack bog (resulting from a large ice-block depression), adjoining poorly drained land with a red maple swamp. Ecologically, black spruce bogs are at the extreme southern limit of their natural range in this portion of Michigan. Michigan DNR
The bog is in Waterloo State Recreation Area, a 21,000 acre park that is Michigan’s third largest. It lies between the Phyllis Haehnle Memorial Audubon Sanctuary to the west and Pinkney Recreation Area to the east.
The red X marks the location of Waterloo SRA, between Jackson and Ann Arbor.
On to the sights! The weather was not very cooperative at first, windy with short periods of light rain. But it started clearing by the time I was walking out.
Map of the trails around the Eddy Discovery Center. The bog trail is in the lower right corner.
The trail alternately followed a ridge in the beech-maple forest and low lying areas of hardwood swamp before reaching the bog. I’m relying on Siri Knowledge and Wikipedia for the plant IDs, so corrections and clarifications are welcome.
Information sign along the trail explaining the hardwood swamp habitat. Bigger.
Ridge Trail
Beech and Maple, not surprisingly, along the ridge in the beech-maple forest area.
Looking uphill to a side trail going up to a drier ridge of pines.
Another view of the ridge trail, with older cleared storm damage and the higher oak-hickory ridge in the background. The soil was sand and gravel.
Serviceberry (Amelanchier) was in bloom.
Mayapples (Podophyllum petatum) liked the area between the bottom of the ridges and the swamp. They haven’t bloomed quite yet.
Threeleaf Goldthread (Coptis trifolia) also liked the marginally drier areas. I’m not sure what the other leaves are.
The Common Blue Violets (Viola sororia) also liked the moist habitat but not standing water.
Low Lying Swamp
Between ridges are swamps with slow moving water.
Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) liked the areas next to the water. Here, it stretched to the ridge in the background.
Lots of ferns were in the fiddlehead state, here Cinnamon Fern (Osmundastrum) next to skunk cabbage.
Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris) is in the buttercup family. It was the most noticeable flower.
Yellow Trout Lilies (Erythronium americanum) were easily overlooked. The White Trillium in the title photo were growing nearby.
Into the Black Spruce Kettle Bog
The entrance into the Black Spruce kettle bog. The boardwalk has a short T at the end with a bench on one side, so does not intrude very far into the bog. The sign on the left says keep yer tootsies on the boardwalk.
View looking up at the hardwood ridge that rings the bog and keeps the water in. The red is maple trees just starting to leaf out. In the foreground are last year’s cattails and tamaracks with new growth.
A closer look at the Tamarack (Larix laricina) leaving out, or maybe better stated, needling out.
Also just leafing out — some kind of Dogwood with beautiful red stems.
Leatherleaf (Chamaedaphne calyculata) shrub.
Low to the ground and also easy to overlook this early under the leaf litter — the carnivorous Purple Pitcher Plants (Sarraceni purpurea) in the bog.
That wraps up the early spring tour of the Black Spruce kettle bog. Now it’s your turn. What’s up in your neck of the woods?
I’ll be away from my computer until after lunch, or maybe mid-afternoon. You Bucketeers know what to do. Carry on!
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