A Semi-Tropical Weekend

The most clear and obvious sign of spring, or climate change, over the long weekend, was certainly the weather.  It hit 70 on Saturday, and was in the 60's Sunday and Monday.  The next 2 days, at least, promise to be as warm.
Here are some other signs of spring that I saw this weekend:
Showdrops -- these have probably been up for quite a while, I just haven't looked.

Photo 2/18/17

It was probably a great weekend for birders.  Even as a not-birder, I noticed that there was a lot of activity... things that are here all winter were just active and noisy.  I saw robins (which used to be a harbinger or spring) and killdeer abounded.  We are technically in the summer range of the killdeer, according to Cornell, but we're so close to the year-round range that seeing them now isn't necessarily hugely significant.  There were ducks, mallard and otherwise, swimming in the open waters.  Red-wing black birds were all over, their calls piercing the air.  (I know that photo isn't clearly recognizable as a RWBB, you'll have to trust me on that!)

Photo 2/18/17

Silver maples always have early-swelling buds, but these ones are definitely opening and letting their flower parts show:

Photo 2/18/17

I also saw my first woolly bear of the spring.  I also saw a millipede, and we had a little cranefly in our house.

Photo 2/20/17

Crocus Pocus

I spotted my first blooming crocus of the year -- actually saw about 50 of them, in 3 separate yards... and here's a woolly bear, a week after my first sighting of the spring.  

Ice Off and Sensory Observations

Ice is officially off of the lake today.  To be fair, this may have happened yesterday.  There was ice remaining in the morning, but it was over 60 degrees yesterday AND it rained just after sundown, both of which could have contributed to quickly melting ice.  Either way, I didn't see the ice-free lake until this morning and I like the idea of a Leap Day Ice-Off.  How often will THAT happen?

So... here's that, in the grand scheme of things:

2016: 2/29

2015: 3/23

2014: 4/2

2013: 4/4

2012: 2/22

2011: 3/18

2010: 3/18

2009: 3/9

2008: 3/31

2007: 3/18

2006: 3/10

Not the earliest ice off ever... but darn close!  

I have been a naturalist of many senses this weekend.  Here are some of my observations for most.  I didn't taste anything, and I am not interested (right now) in a discussion about senses above and beyond the 5 we all learned in kindergarten. 

Sight: I saw a woolly bear crossing the trail on Saturday.  I didn't photograph it because 2 kids were looking at it and I didn't want to interrupt them.  Also I didn't want them to think I was nuts.  

Sound: I kept hearing killdeer this weekend.  Never saw one. 

Smell: It's skunky out.  I also know this due to sight, but the smell is more salient.  It's just sort of faintly permeating the air all around, despite what I'm about to mention for feel.

Feel: It's windy.  For the third day in a row.  Unseasonably warm, and extremely extremely windy.  

(Note: this blog entry vaguely reminds me of a nature observation organizer we use for our young students...)

February may be going out like a (wind-blown) lamb, but March is supposed to be coming in like the proverbial lion.  They're predicting dropping temperatures this evening and snowfall starting around 9 pm, with 4-6 inches accumulation.  If this happens, it will (I think) be our biggest snowfall since that 18-incher that happened before Thanksgiving.  In other words, winter of 2016 may be missing winter, and instead manifesting itself in fall and (almost) spring!  Weather is weird. But things are happening -- so happy observing!

Flying High

As I was taking yet another wind-blown lunch walk... side note: pretty much the only day this week that we haven't had crazy, blow-you-off-course winds was Tuesday when it rained.  You know how much I love strong gusty winds, so... it's been a great week for me.  Yea.  Anyhow.  I was walking, looking down to avoid having leaves or other detritus blown into my eyes, when I heard the distinctive, primordial call of Sandhill cranes.  I looked up to see them, and was immediately blinded by the sun, which didn't bother me because I'm just happy to see the sun.  When my retinas healed, I was able to find the flock -- about a hundred birds, flying due south, up so high that they looked like barely more than specks in the sky.  Migration!

In the other direction (the one I spent most of my walk looking, ie, down) there are still woolly bears braving the elements.  Woolly bear lore says that the wider the orange bands are, the milder the winter will be.  This year's crop seem to have pretty wide bands.  Although I have heard non-larval predictions for a mild winter this year, I don't know that I put any stock in caterpillar predictions.  (Although this is interesting... I've noticed that the woollies this year seem to have one really tiny black side and one larger black side... I've also heard that this winter will start mild but have a brutal end.  Can these caterpillars be that specific?  If that comes to pass, will it mean the woolly bears really do predict the weather? Hmmm.)  

I also saw a grasshopper today, though it was slow and didn't jump very far to get out of my way.  

TGIF

Oh, what a difference a day makes!  I described yesterday as cold, damp and windy -- those were the objective terms... I left out unpleasant, etc.  Today, however, was perfectly lovely.  Though I woke up to ice on the porch (tried to take a photo, too dark), it has warmed nicely and turned into a brisk fall day... it's sunny, lightly breezy, and altogether pleasant!  Here is a picture of the prairie with the woods in the background.  Though past prime in the color department, they were still looking remarkably pretty.  

Today's wildlife sightings were increased over yesterday, too... I did see a woolly bear yesterday, but that was it for the creepy crawlies.  Today, in addition to woolly bears, I saw dragonflies, grasshoppers, bees, and butterflies (a sulfur and a monarch, though there's not much left for them to eat.  The monarch landed on a dandelion in a lawn.)

I also noticed, walking along, a great many deer tracks on the trail.  I was just thinking in my head how there were really a lot today when this young buck charged across the ag field, saw me, stopped abruptly and stared at me for a minute, then took off leaping again, tail lifted in warning.  

Among the birds I saw, the red-tailed hawks were most notable.  They were soaring and circling, and calling out to each other like eagles in an old western (which, of course, used recordings of red-tails dubbed over footage of eagles).

Wonderful Woolly Bears and Water Bugs

I noticed that there were a LOT of woolly bears today, so at one point during my run, I decided to count.  The rate of woolly bears was approximately 1 every 20 (running) steps.  The one pictured was one of the tiniest ones -- about an inch -- but most were big and fat and fuzzy!

Also, check out this awesome water scorpion I caught this morning with kindergarten students.  It was rather a slow day, macroinvertebrate-wise... I was getting the typical dragonfly and damselfly larvae, snails, scuds... but slower than usual.  And then, right at the end -- this fellow!  I didn't even see him (or her) at first, due to his excellent camouflage as a stick. 

Water Scorpions have a name that's worse than their bite... you hear that, you're thinking that the long tail is maybe some sort of poisonous stinger. In fact, it's a sort of snorkel.  These true bugs breathe air, though they live under water!  Another interesting factoid... it looks like a 4-legged insect (which wouldn't be an insect) with some crazy mouth parts.  Actually, those are modified front legs, used for grabbing prey and pulling it in to their mouths.  Said mouths, called rostrums, are like suckers, which pierce prey and inject digestive juices.  The remaining four legs are used for movement, though they're not especially fast or graceful.  Water scorpions spend most of their time clinging to plant material (which those back legs also do) and not moving at all, except when prey (smaller water critters) pass by.  Then those back legs will straighten, springing the scorpion towards its prey with those "pincer" legs.   And that's your aquatic macroinvertebrate lesson of the day!

Wildlife Sightings

I had a great day for suburban wildlife sightings... I saw:

• A muskrat, dragging a stick through the water.  It was right in front of me, very close, until JUST the second when I had my camera out and ready... then it dove under.
• Green herons, which seem to be very common right now.
• A poor baby vole, who seemed to be injured, which made me very sad.
• Some other rodent -- I think a chipmunk based on its size and color, atop a compass plant eating the seeds.  We scared it away before I got a great view, but you don't often see mammals six feet off the ground on something as slender as a compass plant stem.  It was cool.  
• A cormorant on the lake.
• Tons of woolly bears -- which I think of a cool weather caterpillars, so I guess that's a sign of fall. 
• Leopard frogs.
• Monarchs, practically posing on NE aster:

• This egret, either several times, or I saw several egrets throughout the course of the day.  In this instance, it landed on a dead tree near the class of kindergarteners I was teaching, then swooped into the pond, where we watched it walking in its smooth, deliberate way for a while. We had hoped it would catch a fish in front of us, but it didn't.  Speaking of fish, we also saw those, including a really big one that flopped out of the water.