A Look at the Season's Main Events
By Virginia Barlow
July
The flowering of Queen Anne’s lace, chicory, and St. Johnswort signal the end of spring and the beginning of summer / Bullfrog eggs float in a jelly envelope in a thin film on the surface and will hatch in one to three weeks, depending on the water temperature / Grown turkeys eat mostly nuts and seeds, but the young require insects and are searching for them now in open fields with their mothers / The chunky, brown moths of eastern tent caterpillars are flying
Tiny toadlets are venturing on to land, following their 5- to 10-week-long tadpole stage / Meadowsweet, a smallish shrub topped with white flowers, is blooming. Look for it in wet areas, not meadows / The larvae of most mosquito species come to the surface to breathe air through a respiratory siphon at the rear end / Willow cone galls reach full size. Resembling pine cones, each gall began in late April when a small fly laid an egg in a willow terminal bud
The most noticeable of tall meadow rue’s flowers are male ones, with long stamens. The female flowers are small and lack petals / Bunchberries are ripe / Tiny spring peepers are leaving their nursery pools / The large, hooded flowers of turtlehead, found in wet areas, are pollinated by bumblebees. The bees disappear inside the tubular flowers, which jiggle as the bees rummage for nectar / When all the honeybees are headed home, expect rain within half an hour
Round-leaved and spatulate-leaved sundews are catching small insects. The plants are at most 3 inches across, and each of the tiny leaves has dozens of tentacles, each tipped with a dew-like drop of sticky liquid / Loon chicks need an area of shallow water stocked with plants, crayfish, invertebrates, and small fish / A screech owl’s menu features large insects: moths, June beetles, katydids, and crickets. Outdoor lights may attract both prey and predator
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These listing are from observations and reports in our home territory at about 1,000 feet in elevation in central Vermont and are approximate. Events may occur earlier or later, depending on you latitude, elevation - and the weather.
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© 2005 by the author; this article may not be copied or reproduced without the author's consent.
