This week in the woods, Editor Meghan McCarthy McPhaul encountered this garter snake making its way across a field, perhaps on its way to winter lodging. The snakes typically move into hibernacula this month in rock crevices, rodent burrows, and other sheltered spaces. As noted in this Outside Story article by Sandra Mitchell, different species of snakes may share a hibernaculum; the critical requirement for the snakes is that the space be sufficiently under the frost line or next to radiant heat (a.k.a. your basement) that they won’t freeze.
Now is a good time to find the fertile fronds of cut-leaf grape fern. As Lynn Levine notes in her excellent field guide, Identifying Ferns the Easy Way, the fronds have a flower-like appearance. Close up, you can see individual yellow sporangia, which look like decorative beads. Below these are the fern’s sterile fronds, which are green and frilly. The fronds will persist all winter but change in color, transitioning to a dark bronze.
This time of year, invasive “Halloween” or Asian lady beetles, Harmonia axyridis, have a tendency to sneak into homes, where they crawl up windows and walls and, if you try to remove them, exude a yellow, nasty smelling alkaloid substance. However, out there in the meadows and woods, there are other, native ladybug (lady beetle) species quietly living their lives – including this polished lady beetle.
In this article from the Spring 2023 issue of Northern Woodlands, Declan McCabe explains that there are significant gaps in what scientists know about the distribution of native lady beetle species. This is important, McCabe notes, because some ladybeetle species are declining, and “we have little hope of protecting species if we don’t know that they have recently existed in an area, or where they may still exist.” The good news is that there are ambitious efforts underway to track ladybugs’ presence, and opportunities for anyone with a camera phone to help. Check out Vermont Center for Ecostudies’ Vermont Lady Beetle Atlas and Cornell University’s Lost Ladybug Project to contribute your own observations.
What have you noticed in the woods this week? Submit a recent photo for possible inclusion in our monthly online Reader Photo Gallery.