Ginny’s Calendar Archive
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December 2008
Common plantain, with its thin, cylindrical seed stalk, is also called rattail. Mice and birds eat the seeds / If black ice forms on ponds, look for life below: painted turtles, snapping turtles, tadpoles, newts, and insects / Most snowshoe hare have changed into their white winter coats / Bog cranberries withstand frost and can be eaten right off the… (more)
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November 2008
Watch for the last yellow-legged meadowhawks hunting from sun-warmed rock walls, cement foundations, and gravel drives. This small, red-bodied skimmer is the only northern dragonfly to survive into November / Long-tailed weasels stay brown in the southern part of their range. Here, they are completing the change to winter white / Tree sparrows are arriving from the Arctic. Some will… (more)
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October 2008
Sugar maples at peak color / A wet October means good mushroom hunting / The northern casemaker, the largest of our stream-dwelling caddisflies, is among the last to appear. The pumpkin-colored adults are often seen at screen windows and doors / Witch hazel is in flower – the seeds take two years to ripen / Fertilizer high in phosphorus and… (more)
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September 2008
Ruffed grouse broods begin to break up / Native Americans roasted the rootstocks of false Solomon’s seal and ate them. They are said to taste like a mild parsnip. Look for the berries, which are now a translucent red / Luna moth larvae are dropping from their feeding trees to search for a suitable place to spin a cocoon in… (more)
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August 2008
Raspberry season coming to an end; blackberries will ripen soon / Turtlehead blooming / Earliest Jefferson salamander larvae lose their gills and leave their breeding ponds / Second batch of flying squirrels is born, often in cavities excavated and formerly occupied by sapsuckers / Larval eastern newts undergo metamorphosis at the end of their first summer, when most transform into… (more)
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July 2008
Beavers will abandon their lodges and move on when they have depleted an area of their preferred food species, including willows, aspens, and cottonwood / Honeybee lore: a swarm in July isn’t worth a fly / In ponds, waterstriders are using their sucking mouthparts to drain the juices from mosquito larvae that come to the surface / Great horned owls… (more)
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June 2008
Common yellowthroats are good news for slow drivers: they sing loudly and seem to like roadsides / Sapsuckers are excavating new nest cavities. Aspen trees infected by the false tinder fungus are preferred. Look for hoof-shaped brackets, which are the fruiting bodies of this fungus / The brown thrasher loves to sing, and he has as many as 2000 songs… (more)
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May 2008
May Day is midway between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice / Wild ginger is flowering. Small pollinating gnats and flies warm themselves within the ground-hugging flower / Forty to 250 eggs are being laid singly by each female eastern newt on submerged vegetation / Look for the backs of suckers as they ascend small, stony streams to spawn… (more)
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April 2008
Elm flowers are out, well before the leaves / Downy and hairy woodpeckers are excavating nest holes. It takes downies about 16 days to complete the job; 20 days for hairies / Painted turtles are among the earliest turtles to come out of hibernation. They have even been seen swimming below ice / The spirited song of the vesper sparrow,… (more)
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March 2008
Pine grosbeaks and cedar waxwings may come to town to feast on crabapples / White-breasted nuthatches sometimes use birdhouses, starting soon. The entrance hole should be 1¼ inches in diameter / Black bears emerge from hibernation having lost as much as 40 percent of their body weight / Poplar buds begin to open if there is a warm spell /… (more)