And the Living’s Easy: Leo Season Again
Jul. 28th, 2022 06:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
denebalgedi777It’s almost the anniversary of my migration last year. The sun has already rolled back around to Leo. Leo is associated with the 5th house, a house of leisure and amusements among other things. Later July through late August often have this feeling of a final flurry of amusements before the world of work (6th house and sun in Virgo) reasserts itself. That has been true to an extent of the entire summer, although most of the festivities died down maybe a week after the 4th of July, but there has been an absence of the kind of high drama the likes of which we saw the past two years, so in a way it does feel like “summertime and the living’s easy”, at least for now. I’m writing this down before my life gets busier, for a few days at least.
Despite the unusually wet spring that wiped out last year’s drought, it is now one of the drier summers on record up to this date. It only took one prolonged heat wave along with a steady fierce wind to dry things out. The nearby prairie which was fantastically green all the way into July all of a sudden has taken on parched yellow highlights. Many of the previously healthy prairie flowers are now looking quite withered. The “Midwest heat dome” was all it took for the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area to flip from abnormally dry conditions to severe drought. I would be tempted to say this is the beginning of a trend that will turn the climate of this area more like the plains out west, but I’m not sure. The truth is we have had such dry spells before in the 2000s, and they reversed, with some of our wettest summers coming in the 2010s.
Finally the heat broke with the coming of a major storm front a few days ago, and recently there have been wake-up temperatures in the 50s. This was a welcome relief. The skies have also been cloudier and the wind has kept up, only now the breeze is coolly refreshing. Of course, at this time of year, such conditions are unlikely to last; there are already further heat waves in the forecast, and some models are showing a hotter than average pattern lasting well into the fall. Being an almost lifelong resident of the Upper Midwest I have noted that most summers have a period at the height of summertime where a brief hint of fall can be detected in the air, although the trend is almost certain to reverse. This is one of those times.
As far as wildlife, the feeling is “everything old is new again”. The breeding season for birds completed successfully, so all of a sudden many of the species that went missing since the springtime have reappeared at the feeder. The tufted titmice have successfully raised young and visit regularly, the baltimore orioles finally returned to the jelly feeder, and we have had indigo buntings as regular visitors as well. The catbirds, cardinals, grosbeaks, doves and all the finches stayed around as well. Nuthatches and all the common woodpeckers are often battling over seed. In the next neighborhood over new turkeys have been born. This July has been very exciting to see, because in my old home of Hennepin County some of these birds were seen only as visitors or never seen at all. And I thought the nature there was actually very good, but the east bank of the St. Croix Valley is quite a bit more vital as it turns out.
The biggest controversy so far this summer involved the appearance of a black bear. Apparently they are somewhat common in this part of Wisconsin. I don’t ever recall seeing or hearing of bears in Hennepin County despite it being on the same parallel of latitude. There is a lot of contiguous woodlands for a bear to hide out in with all the hills and dales nearby. Our bear is a young male, though it already gained weight from the bounty of the settled communities around here. Bears need to gain 100 lbs for winter hibernation. The bear would come often at night or in the late evening or early morning and raid feeders. We had a suet feeder and a peanut feeder carried off and destroyed. It showed great cunning in its behavior too; while baited traps were set for it, as residents grew tired of its antics, it has so far evaded capture. The culprit, as of this writing, is still at large.
Since this blog so far has mainly focused on descriptions and musings on the local wildlife, I should note some of the differences we have with my old community too. We have squirrels and chipmunks in abundance. Both Hennepin County and Crow Wing County did as well. However, the rabbit population here is nonexistent. We had rabbits always on our property in the western suburbs. Here they are nowhere to be seen. Well, they are abundant over at the prairie, but for some reason they are not found here. I think the locals have generally gotten rid of tunneling mammals before they can find a foothold, and this includes moles too. Coyotes roam the area and dig up burrowing mammals to eat them as well. The deer have not been much in evidence lately either, though they were regular visitors early in the year. It’s possible they are hiding because of summer poachers – this is speculation but I know such activities go on.
There is not much more in the way of novelty to describe for this summer. We have had a pair of accipiters nesting in the neighborhood, but they were too far off to identify when I saw them. I saw an eagle in the prairie on July 1st but the ones in this part of the township are once again scarce. The established population down at the Kinnickinnic River Gorge have successfully raised young. With the low water from the dry conditions, they will be hunting in areas with moving water. At dusk, a wood thrush is often heard singing plaintively. Eventually the planets will be easily visible in the night sky again, and I’ll get my telescope out to go observe, and once again share the evening with the owls and the other nocturnal things. Until then, the sun is in Leo and the quality of time is leisurely. I’m going to enjoy the spell for as long as it lasts.
Despite the unusually wet spring that wiped out last year’s drought, it is now one of the drier summers on record up to this date. It only took one prolonged heat wave along with a steady fierce wind to dry things out. The nearby prairie which was fantastically green all the way into July all of a sudden has taken on parched yellow highlights. Many of the previously healthy prairie flowers are now looking quite withered. The “Midwest heat dome” was all it took for the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area to flip from abnormally dry conditions to severe drought. I would be tempted to say this is the beginning of a trend that will turn the climate of this area more like the plains out west, but I’m not sure. The truth is we have had such dry spells before in the 2000s, and they reversed, with some of our wettest summers coming in the 2010s.
Finally the heat broke with the coming of a major storm front a few days ago, and recently there have been wake-up temperatures in the 50s. This was a welcome relief. The skies have also been cloudier and the wind has kept up, only now the breeze is coolly refreshing. Of course, at this time of year, such conditions are unlikely to last; there are already further heat waves in the forecast, and some models are showing a hotter than average pattern lasting well into the fall. Being an almost lifelong resident of the Upper Midwest I have noted that most summers have a period at the height of summertime where a brief hint of fall can be detected in the air, although the trend is almost certain to reverse. This is one of those times.
As far as wildlife, the feeling is “everything old is new again”. The breeding season for birds completed successfully, so all of a sudden many of the species that went missing since the springtime have reappeared at the feeder. The tufted titmice have successfully raised young and visit regularly, the baltimore orioles finally returned to the jelly feeder, and we have had indigo buntings as regular visitors as well. The catbirds, cardinals, grosbeaks, doves and all the finches stayed around as well. Nuthatches and all the common woodpeckers are often battling over seed. In the next neighborhood over new turkeys have been born. This July has been very exciting to see, because in my old home of Hennepin County some of these birds were seen only as visitors or never seen at all. And I thought the nature there was actually very good, but the east bank of the St. Croix Valley is quite a bit more vital as it turns out.
The biggest controversy so far this summer involved the appearance of a black bear. Apparently they are somewhat common in this part of Wisconsin. I don’t ever recall seeing or hearing of bears in Hennepin County despite it being on the same parallel of latitude. There is a lot of contiguous woodlands for a bear to hide out in with all the hills and dales nearby. Our bear is a young male, though it already gained weight from the bounty of the settled communities around here. Bears need to gain 100 lbs for winter hibernation. The bear would come often at night or in the late evening or early morning and raid feeders. We had a suet feeder and a peanut feeder carried off and destroyed. It showed great cunning in its behavior too; while baited traps were set for it, as residents grew tired of its antics, it has so far evaded capture. The culprit, as of this writing, is still at large.
Since this blog so far has mainly focused on descriptions and musings on the local wildlife, I should note some of the differences we have with my old community too. We have squirrels and chipmunks in abundance. Both Hennepin County and Crow Wing County did as well. However, the rabbit population here is nonexistent. We had rabbits always on our property in the western suburbs. Here they are nowhere to be seen. Well, they are abundant over at the prairie, but for some reason they are not found here. I think the locals have generally gotten rid of tunneling mammals before they can find a foothold, and this includes moles too. Coyotes roam the area and dig up burrowing mammals to eat them as well. The deer have not been much in evidence lately either, though they were regular visitors early in the year. It’s possible they are hiding because of summer poachers – this is speculation but I know such activities go on.
There is not much more in the way of novelty to describe for this summer. We have had a pair of accipiters nesting in the neighborhood, but they were too far off to identify when I saw them. I saw an eagle in the prairie on July 1st but the ones in this part of the township are once again scarce. The established population down at the Kinnickinnic River Gorge have successfully raised young. With the low water from the dry conditions, they will be hunting in areas with moving water. At dusk, a wood thrush is often heard singing plaintively. Eventually the planets will be easily visible in the night sky again, and I’ll get my telescope out to go observe, and once again share the evening with the owls and the other nocturnal things. Until then, the sun is in Leo and the quality of time is leisurely. I’m going to enjoy the spell for as long as it lasts.
