As May comes to a close, John looks back at the month’s beginning.
“You may recall a month ago we were tearing our hair out and lamenting the fact that we were headed into the latest spring ever,” John said. “Not the latest ever, but certainly one in the top five.”
Luckily, that was not to be! A cold April turned into a balmy May, speeding up spring’s schedule and getting phenology back on track.
Please note as schools let out for the summer, we become more and more hungry for reports for our Phenology Talkbacks segment. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with your observations, nature tales and insights! Get in touch with me (smitchell@kaxe.org), John Latimer (jlatimer@kaxe.org), or text "phenology" to 218-326-1234.
The bloom report
John saw the first blooming red columbine (also known as Canada columbine) on Tuesday, 10 days later than normal, but John suspects that was an outlier or he was not looking in the right spots for it.
These flowers are often called “honeysuckle” due to the nectar-tipped spikes on the back of the flowers. If you bite off these little knobs of nectar, it tastes quite sweet and is enjoyed by humans, hummingbirds, bees and butterflies alike. The hummingbird, however, is the plants’ preferred pollinator: as the bird hovers beneath the flower gathering nectar, the flower releases pollen which lands on the hummingbird’s forehead. As the hummingbird moves through a patch of columbines, the pollen is deposited on nearby flowers.
Like the red columbine, Canada mayflowers have begun to bloom. These little plants have leaves similar to those of the lily of the valley: they are deep green with long veins running from the base to the tip of the leaf. In a patch of mayflowers, you may see many immature individuals with just one leaf. Only plants with two or more leaves flower. Although they were eight days late in emerging from the soil this spring, they sped through development and flowered a day earlier than John’s historical average.
Plant progression
Done flowering:
- Forbs: Leatherleaf, juneberry and pin cherries.
Ending flowering:
- Forbs: Large-flowered trillium, nodding trillium and blueberry.
Peak flowering:
- Shrubs: Chokecherry.
- Forbs: Jack-in-the-Pulpits, purple clematis, gaywings, bog laurel and water arum.
Beginning flowering:
- Forbs: Red columbine, Canada mayflower and Northern gooseberry.
Not flowering yet:
- Shrubs: Black chokeberry.
- Forbs: Pink moccasin flowers, Labrador tea and raspberry.
The glory of the understory
Jack-in-the-pulpits are blooming profusely at John’s house. Like trilliums, Jack-in-the-pulpits have three large leaves that emerge in a whorl from a central stem. Unlike poison ivy, these leaves meet in the middle and don’t have a noticeable stem. Poison ivy leaves also come in threes, but they have distinctive stems, a reddish tinge, and irregularly toothed leaf margins or edges. Trillium and Jack-in-the-Pulpit leaf edges are smooth, showing no serrations or reddish tinge.
Although purple clematis is not a generally pervasive plant, it seems to like John’s property and is enthusiastically flowering. It began blooming on the exact average date. Gaywings are also blooming on his property: they have distinctive purple flowers with an unusual, orchid-like structure. Gaywings tend to bloom in patches and are 4-5 inches tall.
Swamp sights and fertile ferns
Bog laurels are blooming in local swamps and bogs, displaying a pen-sized pink flower about a half-inch across. These flowers have a surprise waiting inside for passing insects! The male organs — stamens — are hidden inside little pockets on the petals. When an insect jostles the flower while climbing inside it, the stamens burst out and slap the insect, dusting it in pollen. When the insect visits another bog laurel flower, the pollen is deposited!
In bogs, you may see the fluffy seedheads of cottongrass beginning to show. When mature, these fluffy, white, cotton ball-like seedheads can be spotted from the road while driving past.
Water arums, or wild calla, is a relative of the calla lily. It has a large white petal-like leaf (spathe) that wraps around the base of a creamy pillar (spadix). The spadix contains the actual flower.
The cinnamon ferns are beginning to send up the first of their fertile stems. Likewise, some interrupted ferns reached maturity. Interrupted ferns get their names from their frond structure. As you move up the stem of a frond, you’ll find a few green photosynthesizing pinnae (frondlets) followed by brown reproductive pinnae-like structures. Then, at the top of the frond, are more green photosynthesizing pinnae. The brown reproductive structures, which hold spore-producing sori, are currently mature and releasing spores — John checked!
Chokecherries, which are native shrubs, are sporting white clusters of flowers about 2 inches long and a half-inch wide.
Spruces, firs and pines are all showing the bright green color of new growth. Over the next week, a careful look will reveal the small pollen cones and green, unripe seed cones on the end of the branches. Norway pines (red pines) are the earliest to produce cones, followed closely by the others.
A steep learning curve for crows
As you’re out exploring the world, take a moment to stop and listen. In addition to the hum of mosquitoes, you may also hear fledging crows begging their parents for food. They have now reached the age where they must leave the nest, but the chicks are understandably hesitant to take the leap.
The parents are just as eager for them to get going and will begin to tempt them with food held out of reach. Understandably frustrated, the babies do what hungry kids do best: make a ruckus! Keep an ear out and you may hear them.
In a week or two, once the chicks have fledged and are out in the world, they’ll have bigger problems than their parents. In addition to the normal dangers of predators, gravity and food reliability, young crows must also learn about cars.
Unfortunately, they’re not all fast learners: the most morbid item on John’s yearly phenology list is the first crow roadkill. Adult crows are too street-smart to get hit, but every June, a few fledglings are lost. Any other time of year, roadkill crows are a very rare sight.
Save a turtle!
Turtle roadkill is far less rare. In June, many of our native freshwater turtles venture on land to lay their eggs. This is a dangerous journey for them! In their freshwater habitat, there are very few predators that can hurt or kill an adult turtle. On land, however, there are coyotes, birds of prey, the ever-present danger of dehydration, and now their largest threat: cars.
If you see a turtle crossing the road and it is safe to pull over, please help them out! The best way to help is to move them in the direction they were traveling. Often, people try to help by placing them on the side closest to water, or by transporting them to a nearby lake.
However, this causes more harm than good: most often, the turtle is a nesting female looking for a spot to lay her eggs. Now, she must either walk the long journey back to the road (and cross it again) or (worse) learn to navigate and flourish in an entirely unfamiliar habitat. So, when you stop, just quickly pick up the turtle and place it on the side of the road it was facing when you noticed it.
Snapping turtles can be dangerous to move, both for you and the turtle. They have sharp claws and truly dangerous jaws, which leads many people to pick them up by the tail. Unfortunately, the sheer weight of their body is too much for their tail to support: this can lead to dislocation of the spine and vertebrae. Instead, carefully pick up the turtle by one or two of its back legs, hold it at the greatest distance possible, and carry it across the road. (Keep in mind that a snapping turtle’s neck can reach the entire length of its shell!)
American toads have the opposite journey to make. In adulthood, they’re terrestrial, but they must make their way to water to lay eggs. Listen for the males calling in late May and throughout June. Their call is a sustained trill lasting 10 seconds at minimum, and often much longer.
Furtive fawns and punctual pollinators
The birds, reptiles and amphibians aren’t the only ones having young: white-tailed deer fawns are being born and you may stumble across them in the woods. Remember, young fawns spend most of their time lying in the grass alone, with only periodic visits from their mother. This is for their own safety. Young fawns are nearly odorless, and the doe must keep her distance to avoid predators following her scent to her fawn. If you do find a fawn, leave it where it is: the mother is nearby and is taking care of things.
Monarchs and swallowtails have returned to the Grand Rapids area. John saw his first monarch on May 26, four days earlier than average. He saw a Canadian tiger swallowtail the same day. This follows the expected pattern. Although monarchs are migratory and the tiger swallowtails are not, John almost always sees them arrive or emerge on or around the same day.
“In 40 years of records there is seldom a time when it isn’t within a day or two,” he stated.
Dragonflies
During the Phenology show, John got a text asking about dragonflies. The teneral (recently molted) version of the chalk-fronted corporal is out. The chalk-fronted corporal is a common dragonfly found on gravel roads.
“I’ve driven into areas where there would be hundreds in a quarter-mile section of road,” John explained.
Right now, they have brown spots on the abdomen. As they age, they develop pruinescence (a white dusty coating) on their thorax forming two white stripes in front of the forewing and a bit of white on the abdomen.
Darners, clubtails and whiteface dragonflies are out as well and are feasting on the mosquitos. We thank them for that!
“Take care out there, watch for ticks, but get outside,” John concludes. “There’s lots and lots of things going on out there.”
That does it for this week! For more phenology, subscribe to our Season Watch Newsletter or visit the Season Watch Facebook page.
Funding for this project was provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR).
