Late Splurge No Effect on Wildlife

 LATE SPLURGE HAS NO EFFECT ON WILDLIFE  

October/November, 2009 issue

Once late fall and winter roll around, I start spending more time indoors. Not that I don’t enjoy the cooler months – I actually embrace them. Attribute it to far too many hot July days in a hay mow next to an unforgiving metal roof in an earlier life! However, my outdoor interpretive event business seems to bring me indoors in the coming months of the year as I start another season of indoor presentations, Bird Identification Courses, and Backyard Naturalization seminars.

It was during one such presentation in Belleville when a member of the audience handed me a sheet of paper . On it was a collage of colour photos taken at a nearby conservation area, of a ruffed grouse that was acting more like a domestic chicken than it did a wild bird. The photos depicted two young boys being approached by an inquisitive ruffed grouse, one photo showing a boy actually holding the bird in his hands. I already knew about the strange behaviour of this bird as I had encountered it myself during July at this same location, although it seemed that this particular grouse was rushing the season a bit..

I have spoken of this strange behaviour known as “autumnal recrudescence” in this column before. If I may quote from the Susan Stiles poem: “What’s the reason for their warbling? Why on earth this late year splurge? The autumnal recrudescence of the amatory urge!”

And that’s exactly what it is. We see it a lot in ruffed grouse, brought on by the fall season with its shorter days, longer nights and cooler temperatures, approximating what birds during the mating season usually experience in the spring. One last hurrah before the season ends and the snow begins, you might say. One autumn at Sandbanks, as I walked a cross country ski trail through a plantation of Scot’s Pine, I was alarmed to see a ruffed grouse trailing along behind me for most of my walk that afternoon. Several times I tried for a photograph, but had to keep backing up just to keep the bird in focus, so quickly did it match my every step. The faster I walked, the faster he walked. We used to call this fall behaviour “being dopey,” but now we have this more academic term that can be assigned to the aberrant conduct displayed in the fall of the year.

Some believe that other types of behaviour we sometimes see associated with upland game birds has little to do with autumnal recrudescence, but rather something entirely different. I am talking about ruffed grouse that seem to respond to the sound of an ATV or a chainsaw, and start following the noise. Many of us have witnessed this behaviour. A wild turkey once made me nervous as I used a gasoline grass trimmer around our backyard. It followed me curiously from site to site, but once I shut off the engine, the lost its interest in me and flew off. 

Birds singing spring songs, attempts at building nests – all of these actions have been witnessed by birders in the field. It might also, partly, at least, explain the increase in living room window bird strikes in the fall, as they certainly seem to happen more frequently in autumn than in spring. Whatever the reason, recrudescence does result in some amusing observations. One year, a pair of sandhill cranes performed a spectacular mating dance along one county road south of Picton, from September and well into November, until winter weather cooled their overheated hormones. Almost daily, they could be seen by passersby as the birds faced each other and jumped high into the air, flapping their wings in great enthusiasm and expectations.

Other strange things occur in the fall too when weather fools Mother Nature. Some years ago, we noticed much the same phenomenon at Prince Edward Point during a period in late October when the area was experiencing unusually warm, summer weather. We found lilacs in bloom, and many wildflowers as well, more typical of the early summer season. However, the most amazing discovery was a wild apple tree on the edge of a woods that was awash in apple blossoms! Curious as to how this sudden urge to burst into bloom might affect the apple crop next year, I paid close attention to the tree the following year. That spring, it once again burst into blossom, and produced a splendid crop of wild apples.
 
Many of us worry unnecessarily about whether birds, insects, mammals and herptiles will make it through the winter. However, thousands of years of evolutionary fine tuning has resulted in each species perfecting its ability to make it, no matter what Nature throws at it. And if they feel the need to have one last kick at the can before the snow flies, more power to them. It would also seem that this recrudescence – these encore stage performances – end up being nothing more than entertainment for us, and only a minor interruption in the normal lives of animals that share our living space.