 The Fall In recent days our spate of cool weather relented and vestiges of a lost summer awakened. The Nasturtiums, which I coddle each night by covering with a black umbrella and a colourful assortment of cherished plastic sledding equipment, saw the return of a hardy but slow-moving bumblebee. The evening of our return to warmer temperatures also saw the emergence of a number of moths. The ones I watched sped about with such zeal I was wondering if they were performing some celebratory dance. The next day I walked to the mail box and heard the distinct clatter of a dark gray grasshopper with yellow wings - more a harbinger of the dog days of summer than the waning last week of September. Then, from their hiding places in the yellowing grass, I heard other types of grasshoppers sawing madly on their violins, no doubt scorned in their frivolous activities by the nearby, and more industrious, red ants. While searching in the woodpile for just the right strip of wood to make a corral of sorts for a live packrat trap, I noticed a dormant bald-faced hornet tucked into the corner of a piece of wood. Thinking it must have died from a series of below zero nights we’ve had I drew it up to my face for a closer look. It looked as if it lacked wings so perhaps it was the victim of a very ferocious spider. If it was dead further investigation were safe so I poked it with my finger. Lethargically the hornet turned the tip of its abdomen toward me in a slow motion attempt to impale me with its stinger. I could now see its wings clearly and they were still attached. I placed the strip of wood down carefully and in my head replayed the stories of all the worker hornets dying in the winter and only the queen surviving to start next year’s swarms. Was this a queen? It didn’t strike me as royalty. Maybe it was a worker hornet and hadn’t heard the same stories. But despite the frayed summer edges stirred by the surge of mild air, autumn will not be denied its own time. Never a tree to tarry, the black cottonwoods have launched into full golden glory. They will throw down their leaves before the trembling aspen admit there is gold in their future. The skies too lack in summer accoutrements, birds for instance. Canada Geese sense a dearth of avian input then clamor loudly and do their best to fill the air with the sound of feathers raking the wind. Other small contributions come from migrating Yellow-rumped Warblers which call their familiar ‘vit…vit’ as they fly. It is still early enough for Kinglets to be about and in the yard a Ruby-crowned Kinglet abruptly appears in the lilac bush. So frantic are its movements that it makes a Chickadee look like a sloth. From the forest behind the house the strident two note utterance of the Golden-crowned Kinglet signifies that it has not yet slipped southward. These small bundles of energy are often found in flocks of Chickadees, but as days grow colder they are gone, the Golden-crowned usually the last to slip away. Daily visits by several Hairy Woodpeckers remind me that we have an arrangement. I’m not yet providing them with suet so to demonstrate their distain for my sense of timing they visit and throw seed about while hanging uncomfortably from the sunflower seed feeders. This fall, for the first time since I lived here, there is not one red squirrel in the yard. Usually they can be counted on to provide a harvest feeling as they climb to the tops of the evergreens and toss ripe cones onto the vehicles in the yard. I was aware that this might happen and even made dire predictions. On tracts of land with a preponderance of pines I suggested the squirrel population would drop due to the pine beetle and subsequent death of cone bearing trees. The yard traditionally hosts a minimum of two squirrels, even in winter, but by mid summer there were none. Every large pine on the property is dead and though there are an equal number of live fir trees none of them produce cones, and cones are a staple of squirrel winter food. A lady I know who has lost her yard squirrel said that she pined over the loss (Ok, I didn’t plan that sad pun but I’m going to let it stand) just as if it was one of her pets. I know how she feels. Though at times I’ve cursed their little red hides I now jump each time I hear a red squirrel anywhere near the house in the hope that one will once again claim the yard. Unfortunately roaming wild squirrels do not know that I provide seed and might only scan the yard full of dead trees then write the property off as poor habitat. After two years of having bumper crops of Chickadees at my feeders, I’ve already decided this year will be different. Early returns to the two small feeders have been dismal – several Black-capped Chickadees and the odd Mountain Chickadee are all I’ve seen. I can’t explain the drop in numbers. It may be that there are truly fewer Chickadees to go around or perhaps a neighbour has already put up a big box feeder and lured every bird away. Perhaps I can blame it all on global warming. Perhaps this recent spell of mild weather will become the new order and instead of looking for squirrels and Chickadees to entertain me as winter approaches I’ll be feeding Parrots and cursing the monkeys for waking me up too early. To e-mail Tom CLICK HERE To look at previous column CLICK HERE |
