Afton State Park phenology, July 19 to 26

Great spangled fritillary butterfly on wild bergamot, Afton State Park, July 11, 2024 (John Zakelj/iNaturalist)

Astronomy

Sunday, July 21st, is the Full Buck Moon. It gets its name because at this time of year buck deer are growing antlers.

Birds

Canada Geese lost their flight feathers several weeks ago and have been growing new ones for
the fall migration. Until then, they’re grounded!

Many species of birds have fledged their young and are done nesting for the year. This is especially true of species that go south for the winter and are only here for a short time. One result is that it’s a lot more quiet in the early morning hours; once a species is done nesting the males have no need to sing to defend their territory or attract a mate. But the birds that have multiple broods of young, called “recurrent nesters” are still singing at dawn. Some of the recurrent nesters at Afton are American Robins, House Wrens, Cardinals, Eastern Bluebirds, Mourning Doves, and Red-bellied Woodpeckers.

Mammals

Look for bats flying after sunset. Bats in our area have been affected by a disease called “white nose fungus”. Infested colonies wake up from hibernation in the winter, which often causes their death. Bats need our help: a 2021 study estimated that white nose fungus has resulted in the death of 90 percent of the Little Brown Bats, Northern Long-eared Bats, and Tri-colored Bats in North America. Scientists are testing a vaccine that appears to protect bats from the fungus; the next step will be to find a way to administer it that doesn’t require bats to be captured and handled. And there are tests of using UV lights in bat caves to kill the fungus, and feeding bats probiotics to strengthen their immune systems. You can help protect bats by staying out of caves where bats hibernate and making your yard bat-friendly by retaining large trees or putting up bat houses. And enjoy the aerial acrobatics of any bats you see at Afton – they eat lots of mosquitoes!

Also watch for chipmunks and red squirrels when you’re hiking or biking at Afton. If you hear something chattering away when you hike past, it may very well be a red squirrel or a chipmunk.

Amphibians and reptiles

Look for snakes and turtles basking in the sunshine. It’s thought that garter snakes got their name from the garters that both men and women used to tie around the upper end of their socks to keep them from falling down, back before there was elastic. Those garters often had stripes, like the snake.

Insects

Several species of brushfoot butterflies are on the wing at Afton. Brushfoots have six legs but the two front legs are very short and brushy so you will see the butterflies perched on four legs. Often people who see a brushfoot think that it has lost two legs, but it hasn’t! The front legs are very short, have no feet, and the butterflies use the brushes on them to smell and taste. The Commas, Red Admirals, all of the Crescents, and Mourning Cloaks are all Brushfoots.

And National Moth Week starts on Saturday! Curious about moths? Visit NationalMothWeek.org to learn more, and set up your own light trap to see what moths are near your home. Hang up a white cloth (an old sheet works great) outdoors away from artificial light, then set up a light on one side of it. Before long moths will come and land on the cloth, giving you a chance to have a look at night-flying moths. Or if you have a black light set it up outdoors after dark and see what moths come to visit. In the meantime, check out this beautiful day-flying moth. It’s the Chickweed Geometer. Chickweed is one of its host plants, and “geometer” is Greek for “earth measure”. The larvae of all the moths in the Geometer family are inchworms, which look like they’re always measuring whatever they’re crawling across.

In the close-up of the Chickweed Geometer’s antenna, notice the bristles on both sides of the antenna. This kind of antenna is called “bipectinate”. “Pectinate” means “comb”, and “bi” means that they’re on both sides of the antenna. Only the male Chickweed Geometers have these bipectinate antennae; the feathery comb structures help them sense and find female Chickweek Geometer moths. Female moths emit special pheromones, and the male moths sense the pheromones with their antennae, allowing them to find the females.

Plants

Look for Virginia Mountain Mint, Oxeyes, and Blue and Hoary Vervain blooming on the prairie.

Not everything that looks like it’s a grass really is a grass! Some may be sedges, and others may be rushes. Here’s one version of a little poem that will help you tell if the plant you’re looking at is a sedge, a rush, or a grass.

Sedges have edges
Rushes are round
Grasses have knees that bend to the ground

If you feel a sedge, you’ll find that the stems of sedges are triangular and have sharp edges. The stems of rushes are smooth tubes with no nodes anywhere. The stems of grasses are also roundish, but they have nodes between leaves up and down the length of the stem. You might find Bottlebrush Sedge, Path Rush, and Bottlebrush Grass at Afton.

Weather observations

Here are some weather observations from past years.

Friday, July 19	2023: rain and thunder early in the morning; 2022: heat advisory, high of 95°; 2011: steamy and 80s in the morning, with a powerful mid-morning thunderstorm
Saturday, July 20	2013: 60s in the morning, rising into the 70s
Sunday, July 21	2022: temperature in the 80s with a dry wind; 2015: sunny and pleasant, high near 80°
Monday, July 22	2020: high of 69°
Tuesday, July 23	2020: sunny and pleasant, in the low 80s
Wednesday, July 24	2012: record rainfall of 1.69 inches
Thursday, July 25	2015: mid-80s and sticky