https://vermontalmanac.org/virginia-barlows-calendar/

“Bear hunters welcome” says a sign by a cornfield near us. Bear season began in Vermont on September 1. There are more bears around here nowadays, not a lot more, but enough to make their rampages in cornfields a worse-than-usual problem. “Bears are after food.” Period. Says our game warden.

/in , /by

After analyzing the fate of almost 1.4 million tagged monarch butterflies, Monarch Watch Director Chip Taylor and colleagues are throwing a widespread theory about monarch decline out the window. They conclude that the decline in monarchs isn’t because of food shortages during migration. Instead, it’s the size of the summer population. More milkweed is needed in the north to build and sustain the monarch population. Here at home, there seem to be more monarchs than last year, but there are never enough.

/in , /by

Cecropia caterpillars grow to be four inches long and are well decorated and you would think easy to spot. But my way of finding them is to look for leafless petioles on our apple trees. They eat apple leaves, but not the petioles. Funny that sometimes you can look right at a caterpillar big as your thumb and not see it.

/in , /by

Yellow jackets have noticed that we eat outdoors now more than we did in pre-Covid times. It’s live and let live only because killing them is hazardous to the aggressor.

/in , /by

Bad news dept: A recent study carried out at Penn State found that in our area invasive shrubs maintain green leaves for about 30 days longer than native shrubs. Interestingly, most of the extra green-leaf days for the invasives are in the fall. Eastern North America has the most invasive shrub species and they are more abundant here than in other parts of the country.

/in , /by

Several new-to-me mushrooms have been eaten in our house recently, among them fairy rings, sweet tooths, and yellowfoot chanterelles. A pan full to the brim with yellowfoots cooks down to almost nothing.

/in , /by

All too soon, pink Joe Pye weed flowers have faded, as have the white flowers of its frequent companion, boneset. Goldenrod is picking up the slack – for now.

/in , /by

As is often the case at this time of year, a sudden, steep drop in temperatures comes as a surprise, but before you get to digging out the woolies, it’s back to tee shirts and shorts.

/in , /by

A painted turtle’s diet is 50 percent vegetable and 50 percent animal – Insects, snails, small fish, tadpoles, mussels – dead or alive.

/in , /by

Just a taste of the milky white poison that toads secrete from their parotid glands sends most would-be predators off to search for a more palatable meal. Most dogs try toad only once.

/in , /by