Chuck Tague

    Summer is nearly gone.  In less than a month the sun will be hidden beyond the horizons longer than it is visible in the sky.   In western Pennsylvania it’s the season of clear skies, hazy horizons, colorful sunsets and cool evenings!  The shortening days affect all plants and animals.  Winter is approaching -- it’s time to prepare.

    Look for the first fall colors. Some Red Maples are starting to show patches of reds and yellow.  Sumacs and Virginia Creeper are ready to turn red and the leaves of Flowering Dogwoods will get a bronzy sheen.  Black Gum trees will be crimson.  In mid September ash trees will turn purple.

    Look for berries on the forest floor’s herbaceous perennials.  Stalks holding dark blue berries emerge from the now sad-looking gold-green leaves of the Blue Cohosh.

Doll’s Eyes, or the eye-catching white berries of American Baneberry, stare at any intruder in the forest.  Watch for the fire engine red clusters of Jack-in-the-Pulpit fruit.  Many species of woodland lilies that bloomed last spring produce fruit in September.  Look for the blue beads of the clintonias and the berries of Canada Mayflower, Solomon’s Seal, False Solomon’s Seal and the trilliums.  On the edge of the forest, the Pokeweed berries are the color of red wine.

    On the floor of wet woods, among the shriveling Skunk Cabbage leaves, look for something that resembles a hand-grenade.  These are the fruits of the Skunk Cabbage.

Esther Allen smells a Skunk Cabbage fruit.

    On vines and shrubs, most berries have developed, but are still green.  Look for berries on grape vines, bittersweet, Flowering Dogwood and Poison Ivy.  Spicebush berries are shiny red and especially attractive, not only to humans but migrating thrushes.  The spicebush crop is excellent this year.  Locate a Spicebush and watch as the berries diminish during September.  Where do the go?  Migrating thrushes consume large quantities.  They are high in fats and fuel their migration to the tropics.

    Devil’s Walking Sticks will soon be so laden with fruit their stems will bend across trails.

    Wander off the trail and hitchhiking seeds will cling to your socks and trousers.  In the woods you will pick up small balls from Enchanter’s Nightshade.  Seeds from agrimony look like a miniature king’s scepter.  Avens are similar but more round.  Tick-trefoil seeds tag along in chains.  Composites in the genus “bidens” grow in wet areas.  “Bidens” means “two teeth” and the pair of teeth on the end of their seeds has hooks that won’t let go.  In disturbed places burdock is almost ripe.

    The rains in August will bring an abundance of September mushrooms.  I photographed this Parasol Mushroom at Raccoon Creek State Park on August 26.  It stood about 8 inches and resembled a drum stick.

   In September the Monarch butterflies we see in western Pennsylvania are migrants on their way to their Mexican wintering grounds.  Look for Monarch caterpillars on milkweed plants and chrysalis nearby.  There are other colorful insects on milkweeds such as the caterpillar of the Milkweed Tussock Moth. 

This stout inch-long glutton with orange and black bristles devours the leaves of members of the milkweed and dogbane families.

    There are other butterflies besides Monarchs now but they soon will be gone for the year.

Angle-wing butterflies are especially visible this time of year.  The Commas, Question Marks and Compton Tortoiseshells zipping along wooded trails will spend the winter as adult and fly again next spring.

    Look for moths and butterflies in other stages of their life cycle.  September is a great time to search for caterpillars.  An excellent field guide is the Caterpillars of Eastern Forests  from the US Forest Service.  You can view it online at www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/2000/cateast/cateast.htm

Eastern Comma caterpillar on False Nettle

    Hickory Tussock moths have hairy white caterpillars with black tufts. They are abundant again this year but be careful.  Their hairs can cause skin irritations in many people.

Hickory Tussock Moths favor hickories and walnuts but they will

eat leaves of just about any woody plant.

The silky nests of Fall Webworms encase parts of trees from sections of branches to whole saplings.  Migrating Yellow-billed and Black-billed Cuckoos will explore these, snacking on the caterpillars inside.

    Garter Snakes and Brown Snakes sun along the trails.  Bucks are developing antlers, fawns are losing their spots, squirrels and chipmunks are getting more active and the woodchucks are fattening up.

   

     Broad-winged Hawks are preparing to fly south. Their destination – South America.  The daily Broad-wing count at hawk watches in Pennsylvania will regularly be in three digits through September and finally peak during the second or third week.  Other raptors moving down the Allegheny Front in September will be Osprey, Bald Eagle, Northern Harrier, Sharp-shinned and Cooper’s Hawk, American Kestrel, Merlin and Peregrine Falcon.

    Shorebird migration usually peaks now but the recent rainfall has eliminated shorebird stopovers -- mudflats and exposed shorelines.

    Swallows are forming flocks and migrating south.

Look for waves of neotropic migrants – songbirds that winter in the American tropics.  Keep an eye out for flycatchers, vireos, orioles, tanagers, grosbeaks and, of course, confusing fall warblers.

The sudden appearance of Magnolia Warblers, Blackburnian Warblers or Blue-headed Vireos makes September my favorite month.

    The number of woodland thrushes will swell.  Veeries peak in early September.  Swainson’s Thrushes will appear and Wood Thrushes will disappear.

    Familiar summer residents will quietly vanish.  Brown Thrashers, House Wrens, Great Crested Flycatchers, Acadian Flycatchers, Chipping Sparrows and Eastern Wood Pewees slip away unnoticed.

      Look for growing flocks of Chimney Swifts in cities and towns.

    Watch for flying ants, in swarms or individuals, dispersing and searching for new nest sites. Soon ladybugs will be moving en masse up the mountains.

    Dragonflies are swarming over ponds and meadows.  Some, like the Black Saddlebags, the Wandering Glider and the Common Green Darner, will head south with the birds.

Wandering Glider in flight

Grasshoppers and related insects in the order “Orthoptera” are abundant in September.  Look for lacy green katy-dids, Praying Mantis and grasshoppers in a variety of sizes and colors. Cicadas “snore” all afternoon with a crescendo in the evening.  After dark the sound of crickets fills the air with sleigh bell-like choruses that drown out background traffic noise.  Katy-dids argue about who did and didn’t do what.

    Look for unfortunate grasshoppers neatly wrapped in silk in strategically placed webs of black and yellow Argiope Spiders.  These boldly marked arachnids with bodies over an inch long are visible near their webs, which are easily identified by the zigzag signature in the center.

    Sunflower-like wildflowers are at their peak: Sneezeweed, Jerusalem Artichoke, Green-headed Coneflower, Oxeye and Wingstem.  Deep-purple Ironweed accents the yellow fields of goldenrod and sunflowers.  The white, fuzzy heads of Boneset will be with us through autumn.

    Ragweed continues; ‘tis the season for sneezin.

Bottle Gentian, “Gentiana clausa” -- “A bud and a blossom.  It is a nun among our wildflowers, a form closely veiled and cloaked,” wrote John Burroughs.  These tightly clenched flowers are pollinated by bumblebees that force their way in with considerable effort.  Where you find Bottle Gentian, look for Ladies'-tresses a small white orchid of damp meadows.

     Some of the early asters such as White Wood Asters, Whorled-leaved Asters and Flat Top Asters are in bloom.

    Goldenrods are the headliner of September’s spectacular wildflower show.  Examine goldenrods carefully.  In addition to the bees, wasps, flies, butterflies and other insects that drink the nectar, there are several other interesting invertebrates you can observe.  Look for crab spiders, yellow, green or tan critters that resemble miniature crabs.  Also look for locust borers, a beetle and ambush bugs, a true bug.  Goldenrod Beetles eat the leaves of the plant.  Gall makers are insects that use chemicals to alter the growth pattern of plants, causing the plant to produce an abnormal form that will provide a protective shelter for the insects’ eggs and young.  The round growths on goldenrod stems are ball galls caused by a small fly.  Elliptical galls hold the larva of a moth.  On the top of Canada Goldenrods are often bunches of leaves that resemble a head of cabbage.  A midge, a type of small fly, forms bunch galls.

    Migrants -- birds, butterflies and dragonflies -- swarm from the north.  Bushes and trees are heavy with fruit.  Animals prepare for the hardships of the inevitable cold.  Life is abundant and conspicuous.  Get out!  Enjoy nature now for soon the inevitable will be here.

Orange-striped Oak Worm