We've spent summers at our 107-acre Virginia farm for 10 years and a decade provides a multitude of deep feelings about the special places we call our home away from our Florida home.
Yet the inexorable march of the seasons compels me to pack and seek new memories in the beaches, forests and swamps of sunny Florida.
I will especially miss my "Thoreau cabin" built in a deep valley on our farm next to a pond and surrounded by forests with bright yellow birches and hickories. It is quiet now but when we return in spring will be a cacophony of frog calls and bird songs.
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This black rat snake laid its clutch July 9.
Fall is best known for leaf colors present in abundance. I found an unexpected botanical sight when I made the rounds to clean out the bird nest boxes and noticed the luxuriant growth of lichens on the tops but not the sides of the boxes. This is a reminder of the many unexpected sights in nature that are there if we only notice them; I make a mental note to work on learning a few of the common lichens.
A common sight in the fields involves seedpods of milkweeds, which are splitting and releasing gossamer seeds to float away in the wind. Bright red milkweed bugs hasten to eat what they can before their meal ticket is blown away.
Another insect I enjoy watching is the large and acrobatic shadow darner, which has replaced the south-migrating common green darner. It's rare to see the shadow darner up close since it is constantly in flight. One day a shadow darner was trapped on our porch and I got a close look at the head, which is quite impressive with its massive multifaceted eyes. This is the view many insects and mosquitoes get just before they are eaten.
Fact Box
William Dunson, Ph.d., professor emeritus of biology at Penn State University, splits time between Southwest Florida and his farm in Galax, Va. He can be reached at wdunson@comcast.net.
Sometimes a wonderful encounter with nature happens as you are at work in the yard. While trimming a lilac bush, I suddenly noticed a gorgeous question mark butterfly attracted to the lilac, but not for nectar since there are no flowers now. It was either probing for sap or spreading its wings to warm up on this sunny but cool day.
Question marks are present in an orange morph in the fall; summer butterflies are much darker. If thermoregulation caused this, the colors should be reversed. They are unusual in that they can winter as adults and typically feed on ripe fruit, tree sap or fecal matter and carcasses.
An exciting happening recently was the hatching of a clutch of black rat snake eggs laid July 9. The incubation period under less than ideal temperatures was about 90 days.
The tiny snakes slit the eggshells with a special "egg tooth" and shyly come out into the world. They are blotched as juveniles presumably for camouflage, but gradually get darker until they seem almost pure black with some indistinct white lines.
I found interesting evidence of their ability to climb trees in search of prey when I spotted a large shed skin draped in a dead tree and extending into an old pileated woodpecker hole.
Although I am not too fond of gray squirrels, which can be pests at bird feeders and gnaw the bark on our trees, I have become attached to our larger and more variably colored fox squirrels. This white-nosed fox squirrel was living wild in our woods and industriously engaged in looking for hickory nuts and acorns to bury for the winter.
So enjoy the natural world wherever you find yourself. Any location provides the basis of immense emotional and intellectual satisfaction when you interact closely with nature.
William Dunson, Ph.d., professor emeritus of biology at Penn State University, splits time between Southwest Florida and his farm in Galax, Va. He can be reached at wdunson@comcast.net.
