September 2020

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

The churippy sounds of bluebirds are heard again in the yard as groups of four or five flutter around and nail down the location of possible rental units for next spring.

Pileated woodpeckers are too heavy for alternate-leaved dogwood branches but they must really like the fruits because they thrash around, fall off, flap, and regain their footing over and over again.

At some friends’ garden, chipmunks carried off all the sungold cherry tomatoes. What on earth were they thinking? I’m thinking mold.

A newly released study from the University of Illinois shows that neonicotinoid insecticides are causing declines in bird populations across the country. Birds suffer from both contaminated seeds and from there being fewer insects. Eating just a few bad seeds causes long-term damage to birds. Neonicotinoids are more harmful to birds than other pesticides and many of them have been banned by the European Union and other countries.

We shouldn’t have been surprised by the light frost last night, knowing that, despite a longer growing season, large variations from year to year are the rule, not the exception.

Skunks are making a real mess of the lawn but maybe their digging and grub eating will result in fewer Japanese beetles next spring. Maybe.

After wary house sparrows watched braver sparrows interact with new objects, the wary ones became more bold, even when the brave ones were not around. Once again, birds are more capable of learning new things than we usually think they are.

Frost expected tonight. Just about when some of us are ready to be done with the garden.

Fox sparrows often kick back leaf litter with both feet, just like chickens. Our fox sparrow visitor this morning was also pounding its bill hard into the ground, like a woodpecker might do.

Dry as a bone here and these droughty conditions must be especially difficult for those amphibians that need to keep moist to survive. Frog skin has glands that secrete mucous which keeps the fragile skin from drying out and helps the animal draw in oxygen.

Maple leafcutter sandwiches are all over the ground and the road. Yellow-rumped warblers seem to be picking them open and eating the contents. Sadly, not enough yellow rumps to put a dent in the population.

On a tip from a friend, I looked at the trunks of maple trees today and sure enough, I saw maple leafcutter caterpillars poking their front ends out of their sandwiches, looking like small circles of maple leaf climbing upwards,. How peculiar is that?

Raking leaves and cutting down perennials can be a chore. Ecologist Doug Tallamy, suggests that we do as little as possible of both. Birds can eat the seeds over the winter and it’s best not to disturb the many insect pupae that lie among the fallen leaves.

Not only are they pretty, but the various goldenrods are used by 122 moth and butterfly species as host plants for their caterpillars. Most birds depend on caterpillars when raising a family.

Finches aren’t nearly as dependent on insects as most other birds are. They’ve mostly done okay in recent years. It’s the insectivorous birds that have suffered great losses.

Ginkgo trees are unusual in that they often lose all their leaves at the same time. Our butternut tree did that same thing last night but perhaps high wind and not tree physiology is the reason.

What a difference a rain makes. Brooks from a trickle to a torrent overnight. Our neighbor measured three and a half inches of rain.