Chuck Tague

    It’s berry-picking time!  Early summer berries, the first of the year, are the sweetest.  Stop along the trails for fresh Wild Strawberries.  Bushwack through fields and savor Black Raspberries or blueberries.  Check open forests and edges for ripe Juneberries.

    Botanically, blueberries are true berries.  They are indehiscent fruit, or fruits that do not split apart at maturity.  Each blueberry is derived from a single ovary and the whole wall is fleshy. 

    Raspberries, blackberries and dewberries are aggregate fruits, or clusters of tiny drupes.  A drupe is a one-seeded fruit, like a cherry, with a fleshy outer wall and a hard bony inner wall that encases the seed. 

    Botanists refer to the strawberry as a "false fruit," or a pseudocarp.  This juicy morsel is a multiple fruit that consists of many tiny individual fruits embedded in a fleshy receptacle.  The brownish or whitish specks that stick between our teeth and we curse as “seeds”, are the true fruits.  Called achenes, each encapsulates a tiny seed.  These achenes also make strawberries high in fiber.  A half-cup of strawberries supplies more fiber than a slice of whole wheat bread, and more than 70 percent of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin C.

    This link leads to the Nature Observer’s Fruit Chart.

   Summer Fruits are the especially sweet to attract resident mammals (as well as birds and turtles).  The animals eat the fruit and disperse the fruit in their droppings.  Summer fruit has a high sugar content and little fat but spoils quickly.

    With the berries come nesting Cedar Waxwings, sweet seeking Black Bears and purple stains on windshields.

Cedar Waxwing with nest material

    Watch for ripe fruit on Mayapples and the Box Turtles that eat these low-hanging egg-shaped yellow berries.  Also look for yellow spots on the umbrella-like leaves of the Mayapple.  These are caused by leaf miners.

    Milkweeds, or plants in the genus “Asclepias”, bloom in early summer.  These perennial herbs contain white latex, hence the name.  Their fragrant flowers provide nectar to a variety of insects.  Monarch Butterfly caterpillars feed on milkweed leaves, although the plant is poisonous to most animals.  Other specialized invertebrates have adapted to the milkweed’s toxins.  Click here to learn what they have in common.

    Look for Common Milkweed in fields and Swamp Milkweed in moist ditches and shallow wetlands.  In dry, poor soil look for Butterflyweed.  Other “Asclepias” species to look for in western Pennsylvania are Four-leaved Milkweed, Poke Milkweed, Purple Milkweed and Green Milkweed.

Bumblebee on Swamp Milkweed

    Canada Thistle is already going to seed.  Beware for blinding storms of flying fuzz.  American Goldfinch gather around patches of this coarse weed for seeds and downy nest lining.  A troublesome invader of pastures and roadsides, this misnamed alien was introduced into Canada and the United States from Europe.

    Look for Black-eyed Susan, Ox-Eye Sunflower, Canada Lily,  Shinleaf and Thimbleweed.  Follow this link to a checklist of wildflowers that bloom during the first two weeks of July.

    Jewelweeds are thriving this year thanks to the rain in late June.  On the Wissahickon Nature Club outing to Mingo Creek County Park on June 24 we found the first yellow flowers on Pale Jewelweed, “Impatiens pallida”.  We also discovered many seed pods, the touch-me-nots.  These resemble miniature hanging sausages.  Inside are coiled stems so sensitive the slightest pressure causes the pod to explode and hurl the seeds several yards away.  It was fascinating to watch adults joyfully popping the pods.  Even after decades as naturalists, most could not resist.

Pale Jewelweed

    How did the jewelweed seeds develop before the flowers bloomed?  Jewelweed plants produce two types of flowers: the showy yellow or orange ones that hummingbirds find so attractive and cleistogamous flowers.  These flowers are cloistered, or closed in.  Cleistogamous flowers are self-pollinated so jewelweeds do not totally depend on animal pollinators.

    Want a preview of autumn?  I usually see the first Early Goldenrod, “Solidago juncea”, around the Fourth of July.

    If the wet weather continues it will be a great summer for mushrooms.  On a recent visit to Clarion County I found two bizarre fungi, a Dog Stinkhorn and clusters of Dead-man’s Fingers.  The Dead-man’s Fingers eerily struck out of the lawn of a cemetery.

Dog Stinkhorn

Dead-man’s Fingers

   Fall bird migration will begin with the arrival of the first shorebirds heading south.  Look for Short-billed Dowitchers and both species of yellowlegs during the first weeks of July.  Good places to search are Miller’s Ponds in the Pennsylvania Game Commission Management Area off Route 285 around Pymatuning, the Fish Commission Visitors Center near Linesville, the beaches at Presque Isle, Big Beaver Wetlands along Route 168 in New Galilee and the ponds at Imperial in Allegheny County.  This link leads to directions to Imperial.

    This year’s Bald Eagles will be fledging soon.  Many leave the nest around the Fourth of July, a fitting first step to independence for our national symbol.  The Pennsylvania Game Commission announced that there are currently 170 Bald Eagle nests in 49 of the commonwealth’s counties.

    Songbirds’ nests are full but about to be empty.  Keep an eye out for fledglings.

Red-eyed Vireo fledgling

    For many songbirds, nesting duties are nearly complete and they will head south, unnoticed by even experienced birders.  Enjoy the “Sweet-sweet- so- so- sweet” song of the Yellow Warbler.  They will soon be on winging to the tropics.

    Bucks are showing the first velvety signs of antlers.  Curious fawns are following does.

    Young Virginia Opossums from this year’s first litter are waddling about on their own.  Opossums have two litters each year and the adults will mate again.

    Young hummingbirds will follow their mom to flowers and feeders.  Don’t befooled by hawk moths that hover like hummers.

Hummingbird Clearwing Moth and Bee Balm

   Listen for calling cicadas, the first katydids and other insects -- the soundtrack of summer.  Lang Elliott and Wil Hershberger’s Songs of Insects home page is an excellent resource for learning and identifying common insect sounds.

    Visit the remnant prairie at Jennings Environmental Center and watch the prairie wildflowers prepare for their mid-summer display.  Look in the wet area under the meadow bridge for Purple Fringed Orchid, “Platanthera psycodes”.

    Now is a good time to revisit the spring wildflowers.  The ephemerals have disappeared, at least above ground.  Others have large leaves, and are photosynthesizing and storing food for next spring.  Many will be producing fruit.  Wild Geraniums, also called “cranesbill” after their fruit that resembles a  bird’s beak, are easy to locate in rich woodlands.  The cranesbill capsule is a clever devise for dispersing seeds.  The “beak” thickens into a five-sided cylinder just below the tip.  Each side is connected to a seed.  As the fruit dries, the sides split apart and snap up, shooting the seeds in all directions.

    July is the month to appreciate the complex diversity of the eastern deciduous forest.

    Learn the ferns.  Fertile fronds of Rattlesnake Ferns are poking up from the forest floor; the upper leaflets of Christmas Fern are curling and revealing rust-colored spori.  July is the month many ferns produce spores.  Identifying many ferns is a challenge.  Keep a list of fern species you’ve located and identified from now until the first frost.   

    Watch as the Locust Leaf Miners turn the leaves on Black Locust brown.

Goldenrod Ball Gall

    Check the stems of Canada Goldenrod for green spheres.  These swellings are Goldenrod Ball Galls, a deformity caused by a fly “Eurosta solidaginis”.  The chamber will be the home of the fly’s maggot until next spring.

    Remember the Wooly Bears that were so numerous last September.  You may have also seen similar, all-black hairy caterpillars, the larva of the Giant Leopard Moth.  Wooly Bears become Isabella Moths.  These, and many other moths, are attracted to lights in July.  The Giant Silkworm Moths like the Luna and Promethea Moths are especially fascinating.

   Butterfly and dragonfly diversity peaks in July. Download PDF checklists for western Pennsylvania Butterflies and dragonflies from the Nature Observer Journal page.

   There’s too much to experience in July.  Get outside!  The days are getting shorter.

Silvery Checkerspot