OCTOBER TARDINESS

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

There were several spring peepers calling when I led a Foley bus tour recently to the Jones Falls area along the famous Rideau Canal. As we followed the trail from the parking lot to the historic Stone Arch Dam where I was about to take passengers on a walking tour of the lockstation, we heard them calling in a small grove of sumacs and hardwoods. It was a pleasant sound, reminiscent of spring, and these tiny frog will likely continue to call as long as the weather remains warm. Similarly, my wife and I heard a tree frog calling just the other day, not far from our campsite at Sandbanks Provincial Park where, incidentally, the weather was so balmy, the trailer’s air conditioner kicked in.

There have been other things calling too these past two weeks. Chipmunks were "clucking," in the woods beside our campsite, a sure sign that autumn is upon us. But, other things are continuing as though summer was still here. We found at least two painted turtles last week while canoeing the Salmon River between the village of Roblin and Croydon. Dragonflies were everywhere, and a mosquito even found its way in my ear.

It can be a time of the year to find odd things. Several years ago during an unusually mild spell, in late October, at Prince Edward County’s southeastern tip, my wife pointed out a few sprigs of lilacs in bloom along the roadside (there was also one blooming this year at Kingston Mills in late September). Even more amazing was an apple tree in the same area completely awash in fresh blossoms. There were other plants in bloom that day too, and I can’t really explain what would trigger lilacs and apples to suddenly explode into blossoms so late in the season, but I suspect it has something to do with temperatures and length of daylight approximating what would be present in spring. Certainly, this incongruous behaviour seems to do them no harm, for the apple tree was festooned again in blossoms the following spring, as though nothing had happened.

Many species of vulnerable wildlife slow down upon the approach of autumn. One exception is the ladybug which has been turning up everywhere this month as they seek out places to spend the winter. One person who called on the weekend, and who obviously realizes the benefits of having ladybugs in the garden, enquired if she could scoop them up and store them in the refrigerator over winter, and release them in the spring. Sure can. In fact, that’s where the majority of my captured insects go as they await identification. One large insect that I had bottled and placed in the refrigerator had gone forgotten for over a month before I came across him still sleeping peacefully in a state of dormancy in behind the jar of pickles in the door. I shook him out of the bottle onto the counter, answered the phone, and when I returned, he was gone. Warmed up and off somewhere to resume what he had been doing a month earlier before his life was interrupted.

One caller last week enquired about box elder beetles. Apparently he had an invasion of them around his house. "They are out of control.....any suggestions??" Not all insects preparing for winter are so noticeable as ladybugs and box elder bugs. Some go about handling winter quietly and with little fanfare. But how insects handle cooler weather is still not fully understood. We know development is slowed and all but the essential metabolic processes cease. For some dormancy comes as a result of cooler temperatures, but for others it occurs at a fixed time, regardless of temperature. That they do it somehow is certain, for they all emerge again in the spring once the weather warms. I have been doing some research on the subject and have come up with some fascinating stuff - so much, in fact, that I incorporated some of it into a Power Point presentation that I now offer to interested groups, called "Preparing for the Big Freeze."

As wildlife (including plants) prepare for winter, it is best just to leave them alone and not worry about the lack of, or abundance of, certain species, and whether or not they’re okay. Nature is very resilient, and is able to handle whatever challenges come along. The tree frog I heard last week will hibernate eventually when the mood strikes him. And the occasional hummingbird that some people find in early October, in a state of torpor, always seem to warm up as the sun produces a little heat, to get its brain in gear and migrate. When hummingbirds are discovered like that, it is possible to literally pluck the bird from the branch, but that’s how hummingbirds handle cold weather - by slipping into a whisper mode until the day warms up.

Nature is amazing. Droughts like we had this year, result in the loss of some trees, and damage to others. Some areas recover admirably; other areas will remain quite dead until Nature fills in the blank spaces with something else. That’s life and death in the real world. As for the tree frog - it may continue to sing until it hibernates, or if it should become ornery, it will freeze to become an important food item in the diet of something else that is trying to survive. It is best not to worry about such things, for we have little control over them anyway.