Dreamin'

At the end of summer, after temperatures had been in the 90s in July, I couldn’t help but remember and dream of days of low temperatures and deep snow. Now a lot of people think that a winter with little snow and mild temperatures is a good winter, but they are wrong! wrong! wrong!

Why are they wrong? They’re wrong because many of our steams depend on spring snowmelt for their water supply,

 

Because our native brook trout depend on those streams' cold, clean water,

Because tree seedlings are protected from the browsing of overabundant deer by deep snow,

Because many plants’ seeds have an internal dormancy that is best broken by a long period of cold temperatures.

I also have selfish reasons for liking cold and snow: I’d rather clear snow than mow grass, 

I can follow the wanderings of wildlife by their tracks in the snow,

I can get warm more easily than I can cool off, and I’ve always enjoyed traveling on skis and snowshoes,

Yup, I like cold and snow –

And I’m not the only one –

But now the winters aren’t as cold and what snow there is doesn’t last as long and it’s likely to get worse – thanks to the changing climate.

Fawns and More

White-tailed deer usually have their fawns during the first two weeks of June, but some are born earlier and some later depending on when the does were impregnated. By the time the fawns are a week old they’re quite mobile, easily able to outrun all but the fastest humans.

These are July’s videos from a camera trap on the hill above the house. The video features a pair of white-tail fawns born to a doe who’s been our neighbor for several years. Last year she had twins as well, a female and a male. The young female still spends time with her mother, but the young buck is on his own and will soon disperse to establish a new home range some distance away.

Toward the end of July this year's fawns were still nursing but their mother was starting to put them off because nursing two fawns is more of a drain on her energy than are pregnancy, winter weather or either of the two annual molts. When the fawns are about ten weeks old the doe will be ready to fully wean them so she can molt and have the resources to grow an insulating winter coat.

Also by the end of July the fawns were beginning to lose their camouflaging spots since they’ll soon be able to outrun most predators.

Here they are, the fawns and the others that appeared in front of the camera in June and July–

 

The camera is back in place to see what other wildlife appears and to watch the fawns grow as the seasons pass.

Fall's A-comin

One day I took a walk in a large area of state forest about an hour from home that I haven’t visited in a decade. The day was smack in the middle of August but there were clear signs of fall coming on. Beneath many of the large red maples lay an abundance of fallen leaves brightly colored in reds and yellows –

Each and every year red maples begin to turn color in mid to late August. Most people think mid-August is still summer, but it’s actually the beginning of fall – chipmunks are storing their winter groceries, bobolinks are on their way to Argentina, woodchucks are fattening up, and the list goes on.

The first of the fall rains have begun and the soil is moist again after weeks of barely any rain. The recent rain has triggered the flush of mushrooms and other fungi fruiting bodies that we see every fall. The mushrooms were small but quite colorful, most beyond my ability to identify. Here’s a sample of the mushrooms I found that day, some certainly are the same species, but all are photogenic nonetheless –

In the next few weeks there will be more and larger and more colorful mushrooms appearing. I’ll be there with camera in hand.

Summertime Jewels

Each and every summer we’re treated to flying jewels in the form of a group of the Lepidoptera called butterflies. Butterflies of northeastern North America run the gamut from drab brown to the brightest of reds, oranges and yellows and in size from less than an inch to a bit over six inches.

Some species of moths fly during daylight, apparently as a means of evading moths’ principle predators – bats. Butterflies apparently evolved from a group of those day-flying moths about 100 million years ago.

In any event, butterflies are beautiful and are a treat to the eyes. Here’s just a sample of the butterflies found in the northeast –

 

Take a look in any extensive flower garden or “overgrown weedy” field on a warm sunny day and you’ll find some of these flying jewels. But don’t bother looking in a sprayed manicured lawn maintained by “recreational mowing” for you probably won’t see any.

Six Months at the Log Bridge

There’s a small stream in the Big Woods that flows into a larger stream and then, as do most streams in northcentral Pennsylvania, on into the Susquehanna River. That small stream flows through a forest composed of hemlock, white pine, red maple and a variety of oaks.

Some of the hemlock has succumbed to the invasive hemlock woolly adelgid and, in it’s subsequent decaying, has fallen across the small stream. Those fallen trees make convenient log bridges for the wide variety of wildlife that makes the forest its home.

You may have seen some of that wildlife in earlier posts: here , here or here

The log bridge is a gift that keeps on giving in these videos taken from February to July of this year –

What a pleasure to see the three bobcat kittens, but also a disappointment to see the jerky nature of the video. The camera that took the jerky videos has been replaced with another camera. If the kittens return there will be better videos next time.

Bears in the Breezeway

Northcentral Pennsylvania has an abundance of black bears, one of my favorite animals. In my 50+ years of working and playing in the area's forests and fields I’ve probably encountered black bears about 250 times and they frequent the ridge above the house.

A number of camera traps are in place above the house and in the yard, they frequently capture videos of bears – including bears drinking from, and bathing in, the tiny pond mere feet from our kitchen window (see this post).

More than 25 years ago we had the first sign that a black bear had walked through our breezeway when I found wet bear tracks on the breezeway’s concrete floor. Was that the first time a bear had passed through the breezeway – who knows – but it wasn’t the last.

Once in a while I’ve mounted a camera trap at the edge of our breezeway to see what passes through – chipmunks, squirrels, birds, and …

Although we’ve seen bears in the yard and found muddy footprints on the house we’ve never seen a bear walk through the breezeway. Those wet tracks and these videos are the only indication of bears in the breezeway, but we've got to believe there have been others, perhaps many others.

Are we concerned about that? NOPE, not at all.