The autumn White-tail rut provides a showcase for all kinds of testosterone driven activities. There are saplings out there to be pummeled, ground to be pawed, and scent saturated urine to be spread about. No, I’m not talking about the activities of those orange-clad victims of buck fever who take to the woods pursuing monster bucks, but am referring to the animal these humans are seeking. For love-sick male deer, November is the signal bell that initiates a period of intense pummeling, scraping, strutting, peeing, and goring toward reproductive success. Individual females are only receptive for a few days and there is no room or time for weakness. Only the dominant males earn the right to breed.

Normally, the question of dominance is settled peacefully by a simple matter of size – antler size, that is. A meager spike horn will not challenge a stately six, eight, or ten pointer in the hierarchy. The larger antlered deer is assumed to be the rightful lord of all the does in the vicinity on the merits of his rack alone. Bucks of different rack sizes will often engage in innocent sparring matches, but these don’t amount to more than confirmation exercises. Dominant bucks also maintain a series of scrapes and sent marked trails to advertise their virility to all comers. The problem comes when two bucks of equal measure are interested in the same female. Unable to assess each other by visual means, they are forced to settle the matter with a show of power. A buck fight can be a violent and deadly affair.

I was lucky enough to witnesses to one of these matches recently.  A pair of eight point bucks elected to duke it out at the trail head at Lake Erie Metropark near the Marshlands Museum. The rumble took place at high noon and within photo distance of the museum lobby. I was able to record most of the event as a distant observer. From behind the protective enclosure of the glass I was even able to shout out like an animated viewer at a boxing match and engage in a bit of maleness. Fortunately, there was not another human soul around at the time.  Take a look at the tussle in this video here or slip on over to the longer You-Tube version (You-Tube video here).

Overall, the fight probably lasted only about three minutes. By the time I started filming, the thing was well underway but there was still two minutes of contact to go. The two bucks never broke their entanglement during this whole time. Each was trying to push the other backward and/or catch his opponent off balance. Bark chips and dirt flew up from time to time as one or the other would dig in with his hind legs and drive forward. They kept their heads down  and sideways with locked antlers maintained at right angles. Thickened necks were held rigid as high arched shoulders provided a platform for the front legs to claim ground. It was an exhibit of sheer power.

I never saw the contested doe during this match, but the fracas did draw the attention of a spindly four point. This smaller buck circled excitedly around the fighting pair like some sort of referee. He was hardly an impassioned observer, however. At one point he rushed at them as if considering a run at the prize money and then wisely veered off. This deer could have been shouting “deer fight, deer fight!” for all I know, but if he did I could not have heard it from my position behind the lobby glass.

If you look closely at the video you can see that the eventual loser tried to break things off about twenty seconds before finally succeeding. His left antler was hooked into his opponents rack as the dominant buck pushed him back. It took a quick sideways jerk to free his tines and then he was off. The winner was hot on his victims trail as they bounded off into the hawthorn thicket.

I saw the winning buck come out of the brush about ten minutes later (see above). Mouth agape and panting heavily, he trotted north and disappeared up the trail. The loser was seen sneaking south across the parkway by a park visitor. I’m sure the four-pointer went off to tell his fellow dorks about the “big fight.”

After the battle, I examined the arena where events had unfolded. The ground was plowed for about fifty feet along the trail (see here). Tufts of hair were scattered about the scene and the autumn leaves were evenly mulched into the bark chips and soil. Scattered drops of rich red blood (see below) on the ground provided evidence that this fight was an intense one. Since I saw no injuries on the victor, I assumed these scarlet markers were from the vanquished buck, although I doubt that the wounds were serious.

The heavy scent of testosterone still hung in the air only minutes after the conclusion of the fight. For a moment I felt an uncontrollable urge to do a head butt into a tree – but only for a moment.

It’s duck hunting season out on the Detroit River right now. Along with all those mallards, black ducks, gadwalls, canvasbacks, and  buffleheads out there, coots are also on the list of fair game. Huge rafts of those round black birds can be seen floating across the autumn riverscape (see below).  They bob, dive, fly, and cavort within easy range of the well concealed waterfowlers. Such behavior might seem foolhardy- even crazy “as a coot” type behavior- but the fact is most hunters don’t bother taking them. They are just too easy to shoot and they aren’t especially desirable as a game bird. A few locals will take coot when the opportunity presents itself. In fact, according to a duck-hunting friend of mine they are good eating birds and he claims “they taste like any other duck”. This same friend  dropped a freshly killed specimen off at the nature center yesterday. The intention was for me to give it to our captive eagle for dinner, but that destiny would had to wait until I had the chance to give the potential meal a visual once over.

The thing that immediately impresses you about this creature are their incredible feet. In a natural world of fantastic feet these peds are over the top – more like pea pods than duck feet. Well, part of that discrepancy can be explained because Coots are not ducks at all. They are members of the rail family. Most rails are small-bodied secretive waders who sneak through the muddy spaces in the marsh undergrowth. Coots, on the other hand, are colonial and aquatic. They play the part of the “crazy uncle” within the rail world and dress up in a costume that makes them look like a chicken in a duck outfit. Ducks have fully webbed feet, however, and coots have only partially webbed toes.

One wouldn’t think that this bird could ever walk on land with those over-sized green and blue feet. Oddly enough, not only can they walk on land, they frequently do perform the task – and do it well. Coots can even run if pressed to do so. John James Audubon once described a scene where he witnessed a veritable herd of coots rumbling over the landscape adjacent to a river. He said they looked for all the world like Guinea Hens. Audubon shot into that herd’o coots and killed four birds outright (not for food, but as artistic subjects). The rest flew out over the river where he continued to pursue them. On terra firma, the long slender toes are allowed to spread out to provide support. In the water the lobes flare out with each backstroke and withdraw as the feet are brought forward. An underside view reveals that the lobes fold back like airplane flaps (see here). These feet are perfectly designed multi-tasking tools.

During the breeding season coots even duke out their differences using their feet. They will go at each other like kick boxers until the issue is settled (when the old coot is defeated by the crazy young coot).

One look at the face of a coot will reveal that they know just how great their feet really are (see here). Just look at that wonderful little smirk – a smile retained even in death. The snow white beak of this bird, complete with a frontal shield topped with a dashing patch of dark red,  is an amazing structure in and of itself. This is a chicken’s beak really- equally meant for active grazing on land and water, and for plucking snails and hard bodied invertebrates. No wonder the American coot is frequently referred as a Mud Hen (even though the name is also applied to the gallinule).

Unfortunately, we don’t have the time or space to look at the rest of the coot in question.  Suffice it to say that the charcoal gray body is plump and the wings are far too short to work properly. But, like the feet, the wings do work and these creatures are capable of long migration flights.  The ungainly nature of the coot is nothing more than a clever ruse to fool duck hunters and naturalists alike. They are neither sleek nor beautiful colored, but they are beautifully made if the beholder looks at them correctly.

November might seem an odd month to turn one’s attention to the subject of tadpoles. Indeed, most of the tadpoles out there have already converted over to adulthood and are now preparing to over-winter as four legged folk. Bullfrogs (and some Green Frogs) are the exceptions to this rule. They overwinter at least once (often twice or more) as a tadpole before moving on up into the big leagues. November, therefore, is a time when these big babies are still very active under the cold gray water.

I can’t really tell you why I chose to spend some quality Bullfrog tadpole time this week – call it guilt, I guess. The local marsh is chock full of  wiggling bullfroglets who make their presence known by breaking the surface for an occasional  gulp of air (you could say they are breaking wind). I momentarily stop to watch them but generally continue on. There’s only so much you can get out of a swarming mass of tadpoles sequentially breaking wind.  I also have two of these critters sitting in my aquarium and they spend a lot of time staring blankly through the glass. I’ve walked by them countless times without giving them so much as a glance. When I do glance over, I find them doing absolutely nothing for long periods of time- aquarium tadpoles apparently don’t find it necessary to break wind. They are, in fact, hard to see against a weedy background thanks to some superb camouflaging (see here).

Recently, I realized that a glance wasn’t enough.  Bullfroglets don’t give up anything at a glance – they require a prolonged visual assessment. Up close and personal, they are really exciting…o.k., not exciting…let’s just say fascinating.  They are fully developed creatures in their own right and much more than mere transitional forms. They are neither fully fish nor frog.

We can chalk that mindless fish look down to the fact that they have no eyelids. Adult frogs have the ability to close their eyes, but the young-uns are condemned to a life of blank unfocused staring. This look is accentuated by the fact that they hold their mouths open all the time. They breath using gills – two sets of three contained within a pouch behind the mouth- and, like fish, they take in water through the mouth and tiny nostrils and pass it through internal slits and over the gills. Unlike fish, however, these gill chambers are sealed and all the water is expelled through a single breathing pore located on the left side of the head (see above view).  This breathing pore, which appears as a spout, is hard to see unless it is in use. The adults are red-blooded lung-possessing air breathers

Bullfrog tadpoles also have lateral line spots just like fish. These special sensory organs are equipped tiny “hairs” (frog fur is very fine) which detect motion and changes in water pressure. The adults have no such thing because they rely on excellent eyesight and sound detection to avoid predators. Tadpoles can’t see or hear very well…I said TADPOLES CAN’T HEAR VERY WELL…they have no middle ear and apparently hear what they need through their skin (and what remarkable skin it is – look here at a detail). There is probably little need for a sophisticated ear to listen to all their aquatic buddies blowing bubbles in the tub.

Speaking of organs, perhaps the most remarkable organ is the mouth (see detail above and here). Here we have a beast that has a tiny mouth equipped with a horny beak (you know, like that giant squid that tried to eat Kirk Douglas in 20,000 leagues Under the Sea), fleshy lips (like Sydney Greenstreet in the The Maltese Falcon), and multiple rows of teeth on its lips (like…absolutely nothing else on the planet!). Yes, the Bullfrog tadpole has three rows of comb-like teeth on the lower lip and a few rows on the upper lip as well. Tadpoles are algae eaters. Every time the tadpole takes a bite with that beak those rasping lip teeth rake the surface like an industrial sander. There are even dozens of rubbery “lip fingers” lining the outer fringe of the mouth to prevent food particles from floating away.

There are many other Bullfrog tadpoles high points to cover, but after mentioning those incredible lips I feel that there is no real need to continue.  QTT has it’s limits.

You might remember that a few weeks ago I posted a piece on some  un-natural late season events. I included a Red-Panicled Dogwood in flower & a trio of Monarch Caterpillars still munching away on late October milkweeds.  Since that time I’ve seen, or heard of, a few more somewhat freakish off season items including a few emerging Polyphemus Moths and a deer fawn still nursing from her mom. I can explain the moths since they weren’t from a local source. They were  probably southern types unaccustomed to this whole cold weather thing – their built in timers were unfortunately set on Dixie time. The nursing fawn, on the other hand,  illustrates a slightly out-of-the-ordinary late date for nursing. Apparently deer fawns have been known to  nurse until mid-October, even though most fawns are full grass-eaters by that time. The Monarch situation stilled baffled me.

I left that trio of Monarch expecting that they would a) die within a few days , b) live to pupate and then die within a week, or c) die from starvation because the milkweed has dried up. At any rate, death was the only possible option  in their case -assuming the sun didn’t explode and turn late October into August (my Polyphemus moths would have liked that!). I didn’t expect the sun to explode nor did I expect to see them again.  Last week I happened to wander by their withering milkweed patch and was shocked to see two of the caterpillars still in place. They were alive, although not especially well (see below). They’d not grown a millimeter since I last observed them and it was obvious they were stuck in their final instar. In short, they were cold, miserable and near death. It looks like the cool weather had stymied their digestive systems and they weren’t processing their meals properly.

At this point, I probably should have continued on and let nature take her course. After-all, these guys were representing the end of a somewhat stupid genetic line. We all know what nature does to stupid things. Instead, I elected to take in these seasonal orphans – along with what remained of the green milkweed leaves (five in all) – and let them finish out their mission within the summer climes of my workplace. I have done many stupid things in my life, so I felt empathetic towards these fellow stupids. They were like kin to me in a way. On the way back, I stopped to place one of the ‘pillers on some brightly colored Sugar Maple leaves and recorded another entry into my “Impossible Picture” file: A Monarch caterpillar against a fall background (see beginning picture).

Within a few days, my charges ate their fill (pooping out a ton of previously un-pooped poops!), and they prepared for poopation…er, I mean…pupation. Although both ‘pillers performed the ritual, only one chose a highly observable position on the aluminum foil at the top of the jar. They had woven a small patch of silk and dropped into the  “J” position which precedes pupation (see here). It was around 2:30 in the afternoon that I noticed this monarch twitching. On a whim, I then decided to catch this one in the act of transforming into a chrysalis. I set the creature in a place where I could take a series of photos and waited and waited and waited and…  Well, it took nearly eight hours of watching (including a trip in my car) before the event happened. It was well worth the wait.

The unveiling process unrolled quickly once it began. I took shot after shot until the final stage was reached.  Then, I went to bed.

Take a look above at a few of the sequential shots and then click onto this link to see a flip-book sequence of the events. Just before shedding its skin, the monarch’s “feelers” go limp and the creature does an alphabetical shift from a “J” to a capitol “I.”  The skin split along the back and slowly peeled up and away. One thing that I’ve never noticed before (Yes, I saw this twenty years ago) was the sudden appearance of a lateral line dark line just before the splitting occurred. I’m thinking this was some sort of ligament which acted to pull the old skin away. The eerie, but miraculous, sight of a lumpy green pupal form emerging out of a harlequin striped caterpillar is a sight that will never cease to amaze me.

Once the old skin was peeled all the way up, the caterpillar-turned-crysalid wiggled about until the hooked cremaster grabbed the silk pad. At this point the chrysalis was self supporting and it continued wiggling until the old skin finally dropped away. It took an additional hour for the chrysalis to assume the squat Monarch form as it shortened.

And so there you have it – a stupid caterpillar changing into a beautiful, but still stupid, chrysalis.  You and I are now witnesses to the last great miracle of summer. In a few weeks I trust the adult (s) will emerge like astronauts out of a remote time capsule. It will take a while before they realize that they are the only ones of their kind left on the northern edge of the planet. They may never actually realize this before they die. I will feed them none-the-less and thank them for their magnificent (though stupid) performance.

I doubt that any kids out there will be dressing up as a Predaceous Diving Beetle this Halloween. Apart from the obvious structural difficulties it poses as a costume, it is too obscure of a beast to qualify. And the name, well, that name is just not catchy enough. Albeit descriptive, it’s just a little too generic –  like calling a Tyrannosaurus rex a “Predaceous Walking Sauropod” or a Grizzly Bear just a “Large Bear.” These creatures have a semantic zing that places them in the spotlight as bad boys – big bad boys. The Predaceous Diving Beetle is a bad boy too, but it can’t get the press it deserves with a name like that.

Granted, you don’t see too many Halloween T. rexs or G. bears out there pounding the trick or treat circuit, but 4 out of 5 boys would be proud to dress as one or the other if the opportunity presented itself. I doubt your regular  little Timmy or Rebecca would find it exciting to declare themselves as a Predaceous Diving Beetle when asked at the porch. “A What?’, the befuddled candy giver would remark after acknowledging the clearly identifiable princess, devil, and hobo next to you.  “I said, I am a Predace..ous..oh, never mind. I am Dytiscidae, Lord of Aquatania.”  I am not speaking from personal experience here, but I can imagine such an occurrence. I remember “treating” once in  a homemade Big Brown Bat costume and recall the frustration of being variously identified as a pile of rags, a mouse, and a cat’s hairball.

The Diving Beetle is a creature worthy of the name Dytiscidae Lord of Aquatania. Perhaps we should launch a campaign to change the name.  These hefty aquatic beetles (see one in hand above) are members of the family Dytiscidae (I said “dy-TIS-ki-dee”). True to name they are predators which feast upon lesser life forms in our local marshes and ponds. They rank among the top predators in the aquatic world and are lords of their domain. Everything, well almost everything,  about them is geared to predatory performance.

These beetles are equipped with hollow needle-like jaws (see portrait above). When they grab prey, digestive juices are quickly injected into the quarry whose pulpy remains are then slurped up. While grizzly bears dismantle their prey from the outside in, the Lords of Aquatania (I said “a-kwa-TAN-i-a”) take care of their business from the inside out! In basic outline, you will find no sleeker creature than the PDB (aka D-LoA). It is made to cut through the liquid element without offering any drag. Every body segment fits neatly with the adjacent part to offer a seamless profile. It is difficult enough to hold onto one of these things when they are dry, leave alone when they are wet.

Diving beetles take in a bubble of air under those sleek wing covers to serve as an aqualung. They are air-breathers. The oxygen supply is refreshed on a regular basis by surfacing for air with the back-end directed first. Tyrannosaurus, as far as we know, took in their air front end first.

Perhaps the most remarkable features on these beetles are the highly specialized legs (see a full set here). In most swimming beetles, the legs are fringed so that they can perform as paddles. Indeed, the last pair of legs on the PDB are heavily fringed. These paddle legs are employed in unison, like the action of a sculling team,  to propel the insect forward in no uncertain terms. The second pair of legs have a fringe as well, but are also covered with dozens of little suction cups to provide grip on slippery surfaces and prey (see above). Male diving beetles sport a set of amazing suction cup apparatus (apparati?) on their first pair of legs (see below and detail here). These structures, looking for all the world like glass-handling suction cups,  serve to maintain a grip on slippery girl diving beetles when they mate. You’ll note the two large suction discs and the multiple smaller suction points needed to keep the female from breaking away during “the act.”

I must admit, all these specialized parts would be impossible to duplicate on a Halloween outfit, but wouldn’t it be great to have a pair of those sucker disc feet in order to plow into that dish of Snickers – emptying it with one swipe. Why, those other “regular” kids would envy you – you, the Lord of the Treat bowl. Should you attempt to make a Water Lord costume for your kids, it would be wise not to divulge the real purpose of  those sucker cup things until your children are well past trick or treating age.

Take a look at this passage from a research paper on Leopard Frogs (published in Brain Behav. Evol. 2004; Saltzman, Zacharatos, & Gruberg). Please read carefully – there will be a quiz.

“When given a choice between one large aperture…and three apertures of smaller but equal diameter they (Leopard Frogs) choose the larger diameter aperture …at a frequency that is statistically greater than chance.  In only 1 of 255 attempts was there a jump to the overhead cover that was not directed at an aperture.”

In other words, Leopard Frogs can aim. They may not have the need to jump through holes in nature, but the test proves that they are excellent judges of both distance and vertical space. This experiment simply verifies the well known  fact that frogs look before they leap. In this case, the amphibians consistently chose the larger hole as the most promising escape route. O.K., this is not an earth-shattering revelation but one worthy of consideration.  I recently took a video which essentially proves the same point as the above quoted experiment, but in a direct visual manner. Take a look at it here and we’ll talk about it.

Yes, you just saw a sequence showing a Leopard Frog deliberately, and expertly, ascending and descending a set of stairs. There were five steps in all. Each level rose 6 inches but they all were easily and quickly cleared. Each was also composed of unforgiving concrete – a missed step or faulty leap would have resulted in some skinned spots and some head trauma.

As if that wasn’t enough, you also may have noticed that the speckled creature carefully assessed the possibility of jumping the low brick wall that it encountered at the top of the steps. It viewed the situation  multiple times from multiple positions in order to get a good fix on the exact location of the lofty top edge of the wall in question (which is “only” about four feet high). You can see the internal head gears working as the jumper considers his next move. Deciding that such a leap was out of Leopard Frog faith limits, he turned and gracefully descended the steps and continued out across the grass toward the marsh. All in all, this was a great demonstration of frog smarts.

All of this, however,  might easily beg the question as to why this frog was jumping steps in the first place. Perhaps, you might ponder, I put him up to it just to get a cute video or that the frog was exhibiting stupidity rather than intelligence. Well, first of all, let me tell you that I didn’t put him up to it. If I was was going to set up a cute frog shot then perhaps a gambling scene with the frog shuffling tiny cards at a tiny table would have been worth it. No, I spotted the creature hopping through the grass and ran out to take his portrait  (see above). A few minutes later he was at the base of the steps and started climbing them before I could even get the “film rolling.” He took no direction or prompting from me.   Now, the stupidity thing – what about that?

Leopard Frogs, distinguished by there distinctive random spotting, are  among the most terrestrial of frogs. They spend more time in the wet grass of meadows and backyards than they do in ponds and marshes. Called “Meadow Frogs” by some because of this behavior trait, Leopards have been known to travel great distances from open water in search of insects, worms, and small invertebrates to eat (instead of walking a mile for a Camel they hop a mile for a Camelback Cricket!). During the fall, they characteristically make small overland migrations to select overwintering sites as the late fall season encroaches . This stair-stepping frog, therefore, was merely acting out its normal exploratory tendencies while on the way to a winter vacation spot.

Leopards are world class jumpers. One might even say they touch the realm of superpower in this regard. They are able to jump 13 times their body length in a single bound – a skill even Superman would envy. Heck, a super frog could eat a Spiderman for lunch. Leopard Frogs are destined for a simple earthly existence, however. They can’t leap small brick buildings in a single bound but they are able to take life one concrete step at a time.

Well, the official 2009-10 Woolly Bear Weather report is in.  Before you dismiss my results out of hand, allow me to explain that my research was performed under carefully controlled clinical conditions and made use of time-tested techniques. I do not take this task lightly. After-all, road commissions need to know how much salt to order and long underwear companies need to predict their upcoming sales. Our very lives depend on the accuracy of such a report. History has proven that the traditional methods of weather prognostication, such as measuring the thickness of the wall on a hornet’s nest, calibrating the bushiness of a squirrels tail, or judging the  intensity of pain emanating from a corn, are bogus. No, only Woolly Bear caterpillars should be considered as  long-term weather prophets. According to the accumulated wisdom of the Woolly bears, therefore, the 2009-10 Woolly Bear Winter Forecast Number is……….drum roll, please…….brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrap! 5.2!

Please allow me to explain the science behind this incredible figure. Don’t worry, I’ll simplify the complicated stuff and give it to you straight. In the ‘bearcast biz. 5.0 means average winter conditions – you know some snow, cold air, one dead sparrow, etc. Any number higher than 5.0 means above average winter conditions – like some more snow, a few more colder days, a small pile of dead sparrows, etc. The scale only goes up to 12, which would indicate a winter in which every single sparrow freezes to death. Numbers lower than 5.0. of course, point to balmier conditions with less snow, fewer cold days, and increasing numbers of sparrows dying from heat exhaustion. A “0” on the bearcast scale means massive flooding, brush fires, and windrows of tiny cooked sparrow carcasses lining the melted asphalt streets. Sparrows do not like the ‘bearcast for obvious reasons. At any rate, a number like 5.2 means “slightly colder than normal with a good chance of chilled sparrows.”

Woolly Bear Caterpillars, the fuzzy larvae of the Isabella Tiger Moth, know a thing or two about winter. They overwinter as larvae and finish their growth cycle the following spring. Their distinctive black and orange woolly coats serve to protect them from predators (they roll into a ball when threatened) and provide some insulation against chilly fall temperatures.  Your typical Woolly Bear is black at each end and orange in the middle, but individual ‘bears vary in the width of that orange band.  Long ago it was “discovered”, by people missing several teeth,  that wider orange bands foretold cold winters and narrow ones indicated warm winters. “Them that have them big orange sweaters,” it was widely reported, “are gitt’n ready for a right nasty winter.” Thus the source of the ‘bearcast tradition.

On a bright sunny afternoon not so long ago I decided to tally up an average of Woolly bear sweaters and see what they foretold. I simply counted the number of body segments bearing orange bristles and then averaged them out. There are a maximum of (about) 12 body segments per ‘pillar, so theoretically the counting could run from “o” up to “12”, but the actual range is between 4 and 6 (average of 5).  I examined 9 individuals which ranged from a low “normal” number of 4 to a high of 6 orange segments. Some segments were half covered and were recorded as such. The individual pictured above was a 6 bander  (go ahead and try your skills out). The population averaged exactly 5.2 orange segments – thus the winter forecast number.

Just for laughs, I also attempted to record the average speed of the caterpillars. Woolly Bears can really burn up the grass when they are clipping at top speed from one side of a field to another. According to my calculations they were moving at the rate of exactly .037 mph. I imagine that they could attain higher speeds if shaved and will attempt a future experiment once I figure out how to shave them (they have 16 armpits!).

Before you rush out to get those long undies, I feel the need to tell you one more thing. Although my data set consisted of 9 caterpillars, I actually encountered 10. I threw out the results of the tenth beast because it was abnormal and, besides, it would have skewed the results. This individual, pictured below, was all black. According to this one brush fires and charred sparrows are in our future. In other words, there would be no winter at all! I had a bad feeling about this bizarre individual. My sense was highlighted by the fact that it had a milkweed bug riding shotgun on it’s back. The little guy was holding on for dear life as it’s furry ride chugged across the trail. That was just plain strange. As far as I know, there are no folklore interpretations to cover such an un-natural partnership. If there is, I’m sure it would require the loss of a few more teeth and lives of a few more sparrows.

I wish Milkweed plants weren’t so dog-gone photogenic this time of year. I generally waste so much time admiring their artistic merits – you know those rustic pods spilling out cascading plumes of cotton – that I probably miss other more important elements of the autumn landscape. How many times did a Bigfoot cross the trail behind me as I was bending down to get “that perfect shot” of  a pair of milkweed parachutes intertwined on a branch?(Like this one).  What if that elusive S.E. Michigan Cougar wandered by as I was obsessively counting milkweed seeds and releasing them to the wind. How many front cover shots did I miss just because I was looking at an extremely common weed? Heck, what if that cougar  or some murderous Sasquatch  ever decided to sneak up on me as I was so engaged – what then, eh? Imagine the headlines – “Local Man Claims Bigfoot Attack – Has Only Blurred Milkweed Pictures to Prove It.”

O.K., you might see this all as a flight of fancy on my part, but consider yourself forewarned. Just because something hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean that it won’t. But, as long as I’ve brought up the subject of milkweed seeds, I might as well continue with my observations and save you from undertaking  this potentially life-threatening activity. You can thank me later when you come up with that award-winning pic.

Milkweed pods erupt on sunny fall days in order to release their seeds to the wind. The plants produce four to six seed pods over the course of the growing season and raise them up from two to four feet off the ground in anticipation of this big flight. Laid up inside the pod like a pine cone (see below), the seeds are neatly- I might even say photogenically – arranged. I took the time to count the contents of one pod, before it was dis-articulated by the wind, and came up with a count of exactly 162 seeds. Actually, there may have been a few more, but I was momentarily distracted by something moving in the high grass behind me.  According to the literature, the average milkweed pod will have anywhere from 100-200 seeds, so my interrupted count was well within expectations.

In the case of the above pictured pod, I had to pull it open to reveal its internal structure. It didn’t take a Bigfoot-like effort to do this because there is a naturally weak seam on the lower outward facing edge. Normally the casing dries out and splits along this seam of its own accord. Commercial milkweed growers (yes, there were such folks) collected the green pods  in late August and waited until they were down to a 10% moisture content. Their pods were opened with gentle agitation. There is a center “wall”, running the full length of the pod, and the floss end of each seed is loosely anchored to this septum. With the central seed core exposed, passing breezes are allowed to lift up the edges of the flat seeds and each unit, seed and attached floss, launches into the air.  Once one goes, the rest will peel off in rapid succession and leave the central septum bare (see below). These flossy parachutes lift their heavy seed load aloft and carry it as far as the wind will allow.

Scientists talk about the spread of air born seeds in terms of what they call a “seed shadow.” This represents a 4 dimensional area determined by the length, width, height, and even “hang time” of the seeds as they leave the maternal plant. Given that milkweeds have large seeds, this shadow is short but dense. Speaking of scientists, I feel compelled to tell you a few more useless Milkweed facts as determined by researchers. I mentioned commercial growers earlier, because there have been several pushes over the years to make use of milkweed floss. During World War II it was collected as a Kapok substitute and more recently it has been investigated as an insulator & textile material. Apparently this floss is equivalent to the density of goose down and possibly better in terms of insulating qualities. It takes 500 pods to accumulate 1 pound of this magic floss. If I’m figuring right, that means that one would need to harvest 75,000 seeds in order to get one measly pound of floss.  I know it would take far fewer geese in order to get the equivalent amount of down, but I wonder if a pound of goose feathers is heavier than a pound of floss?

Finally, I would be remiss not to mention that milkweed floss is extremely water resistant when endowed with its natural coating of wax. When that wax is removed, however, it can absorb 75% of its weight. This led some researchers to explore it as a potential diaper material. Unfortunately, I think this is certainly an impracticable path to follow. Everyone knows that Bigfoot fur is far more absorbent (consider this a hot tip for you potential entrepreneurs out there).

Humans like to categorize natural events into “earlier than” and “later than” normal time slots. If there is anything we should have learned by now is that there is really is no such thing as “normal.”  There certainly are “average” and “typical”  times for events to happen (such as flowering dates, nesting times, etc.), but even these will change over a long period of time. Nature is always experimenting and pushing environmental limits while asking (more like insisting) that the living world play along. She does these things on  a time schedule far different than our individual life spans so it is difficult to see what’s actually going on. It is safe to say that the only normal thing about nature is that she will never settle for normalcy. We know it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature, but we continue to try it. But, there are circumstances when she appears to fool herself and there is cause to wonder if she will exact self-punishment? I believe the answer is yes.

In the seasonal cycle of things there are two times of year when temperatures are cool and daylight time equals nighttime. The natural events surrounding the Spring and Fall equinoxes couldn’t be more opposite. One signals the awakening time and the other marks the season for closing down shop. Every year, however, plants and animals are tricked by these identical conditions and they start to think spring/summer in the fall. Chorus Frogs and Peepers will chime out a few hesitant croaks as if it were March and Redbuds will re-bloom.  A classic example of this scenario is the scene depicted in the photo above. In this case, a Red-Panicled Dogwood shrub contained flower clusters and berry clusters on the same plant in mid-October. It is “normally” impossible to get such a picture  without Photoshop trickery.

Granted, this type of dogwood is “normally” a late bloomer among the ‘dogs. Unlike their showy early spring cousins, they “usually” show flower in July and by mid-August are  “typically” well into setting up their fruit. The October shrubs “always” exhibit  purple leaves and clusters of white berries. Here  again, however, there is no normal or typical. Mother nature will deal harshly with this apparent error. There are only a few weeks left before the leaves must fall and this plant has wasted some valuable energy. The flowers will shrivel and die and the plant will be left to deal with the coming winter using depleted reserves. Only the Witch Hazels are allowed to do their blooming at this time. It’s in the contract, Doggy – read the fine print.

Another situation, which definitely defies the season, was an active  Monarch Caterpillar (see one of them above). I took this picture last week as morning temperatures were slowly climbing into the upper thirties.  The previous night had dipped into freezing range yet this beast was still crunching away at the remaining milkweed leaves. There were three caterpillars in a stand of about a dozen milkweed plants – probably all laid by the same procrastinating female. Based on the age of the ‘pillers, who looked to be in their 5th instar and around 2 weeks of age, this means their mother would have laid her eggs sometime during the last week of September!

In short, this Monarch mom goofed. “Normally,” all late summer Monarchs turn off  their reproductive desires and begin to head south. The big flight begins in late August and reaches a peak around mid-September.  The last migrant has “usually” gone south by early October. All this haste is necessary because the flight will take the migrants all the way to the mountains of Central Mexico. In other words, our caterpillars were still egglings when the rest of the local monarchs were practicing their Spanish.

It takes a month to complete development from egg to larvae to adult. Even if our caterpillars survive the coming week and make it to chrysalis stage, they would not emerge until Halloween week. Now that’s scary. I can confidently predict that they will not get that far. They will shrivel and die just like those dogwood flowers.

Ahh, but let’s not loose hope. This is a part of Nature’s plan. If, by some chance, this November turns out to be balmy and December follows suite, then these caterpillars and that dogwood would be the first in line to reap the benefits!  In the end, these aberrations are simply natural experiments – shock absorbers to deal with the constant changes that occur over time. No fooling.

Sunday dawned cooler than the previous few autumn mornings at the Detroit River mouth. It promised an especially cool autumn day. The sky quickly phased into a bright blue canvas as soon as the sun crept over the Canadian skyline, rolled over the islands, and struck the American shore.  A crisp Northwestern breeze pushed against the dawn but had no effect upon it – it rose at normal speed. The Fall season here at the river mouth can be exciting when these morning winds come from the east on the heels of a clear sky. They bring with them huge migrating flocks of raptors. The hawks begin coming around 9 am and continue, on some days, until the sun retreats at 7 pm or so. Early in the fall, thousands of Broad-winged and Sharp-shinned Hawks will ride them south from the northern forests. This fall some 20,000 Broad-wings were recorded by human observers as they made the passage over the river in September. October usually brings thousands of Turkey Vultures along the same route – following the same breeze.  Westerly or southern breeze usually hold back any given flight.

This October had yet to host the “big flight” of Turkey vultures as of the 11th of the month. The winds had not been favorable. Some groups had crossed, but only in scattered patches and these buzzards were forced to tack into the breeze. Saturday the 10th was a good day, with 8,000 migrants, but not a break-out day by any means. The big black birds had to bend their wings into a “W” formation and angle across the sky in order to make southwestern headway. This day looked to be yet another one of those off days – if you can call a flight of 8,000 birds “off.”  In spite of wind direction, however, it turned out to be a break-out day. I was fortunate to witness at least a portion of it.

I saw my first vulture about 9:45 or so. This bird slid by going in exactly the wrong direction! It was a lone bird heading north- probably looking for a thermal to ride or adjusting his GPS unit. My concentration re-focused on earthly matters for the next quarter hour as I scanned the river for waterfowl and watched a few late season swallows swirl about for midges. The next time I looked up the blue sky was full of vultures. I mean full. One gang of black forms turned lazy circles over the field to my north while another rode high up on a mass of warm air directly over my head (see here). A third group formed a continuous horizontal column stretching off beyond sight from the eastern horizon and feeding into the circular masses.

The circling groups, known as kettles, were impressive enough (see here). These consisted of hundreds of individuals riding a thermal heavenward like a reverse tornado. At a certain point, the top birds would begin to peel off one by one and glide off like a sinuous ribbon. Never was a wing beat executed during this whole set of maneuvers – it was all performed with outstretched and motionless wings held up at a slight angle. But it was the sight of the incoming birds, those streaming in from the horizon, that impressed me the most. It isn’t often that we get a chance to stretch our eyeballs at such a continuous stream of life (see here).

The incoming steam was organized into a band about 10 birds wide and thousands long. Like a meandering river, the column vacillated and danced according to the whims of the breeze. At one point the band angled and veered north for a short spell then fluidly shifted back to a straight western course. As it passed directly overhead, I could clearly make out the details of the individual fliers themselves. Upon reaching the shoreline sky, they broke up into kettles and augured upward.

The aerial show continued unabated for the next half hour until I had to cut my observation time short (neck spasms, you know). The migration continued throughout the day as if some great hand had opened up a floodgate. The sum total of day’s migration turned out to be in excess of 16,000 (officially 16,292). I was privileged to see at least a few thousand of those birds.

It might seem odd that I would get excited at a flock of buzzards, but I hope you see that they represent something much more than that. It allowed me time to imagine what it must have been like to see those so-called endless flights of Passenger Pigeons or Buffalo herds back in the old days. It also allowed me the opportunity to appreciate a tide of modern life that still exists in spite of our hectic modern day world. As you can see, it also turned me into a  writer of rambling nature prose sounding very John Muir-like. I’ll apologize later, but being witness to a living breeze tends to do that to a fellow.