by Roland D. Hallee

Has this been a crazy summer, or what?

The summer of 2019 may go down as one of the more mysterious of recent years. We had a bumper crop of black flies and mosquitoes, last week we covered the decline in the number of bats, the usual suspects appeared at our bird feeders – with a few exceptions, there has been a decline in the activities of red squirrels, chipmunks and gray squirrels, and even the garden isn’t cooperating.

Frequent and heavy rains through May and June, with a July and August that has been relatively dry. Just to show you how the beginning of summer shaped out, we actually ran the furnace, – and air conditioning – on the same day this year, ironically, July 4. That is a little bizarre.

At the bird feeders, we have had the annual appearance of black capped chickadees, gold finches, nuthatches, the occasional tufted titmouse, blue jays, crows and woodpeckers. Although they were slow to arrive. But no rose breasted grosbeaks, cardinals or Baltimore orioles earlier in the year.

We usually have two chipmunks scurrying around, where this year we have had only one. Apparently, it is safe to assume its partner met with some sort of tragedy. The red squirrels have not been seen and we have only observed one or two gray squirrels, where in most years it is a constant and never ending battle with them at the bird feeders.

Again, as mentioned last week, we have seen no bats.

The garden is doing OK, but some of the crops, which I have been growing for years with no difficulty, are looking like a bust this year. Broccoli has not flowered, and my cauliflower has produced only two florets. The green peppers are stunted, and have never really grown to any height, and bearing no fruit. The Brussel sprouts never got off the ground, and the squash are way behind where they should be this time of year. But, on the positive side, the string beans, tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce are doing fine.

However, on the other hand, we have rag weed growing like gang busters in places where we have never had them before, the “junk” trees in my backyard have reached an all-time high, despite some cut back last spring, and the Virginia creeper vines have completely covered the wood pile and storage shed, and taken over the entire backyard along the fence. Where they came from is beyond me, but they have been proliferating abundantly over the last couple of years, again despite some major cutting in the fall.

The only creature that seems to be on schedule is the cacadae, which came right on cue on July 26. As you know, that is the little bug that creates that loud buzzing sound on the hot summer days, which farmers for centuries have credited with predicting the first killing frost of the fall.

Folklore has it that the first crop killing frost will occur 90 days from the day you first hear the sound, following the next full moon, which this year will be November 12. I hope we don’t have an early winter like last year, because it is highly unlikely the first frost won’t come before that date.

Also, it is mid-August and we haven’t seen any hickory tussock caterpillars – the white fuzzy ones with the black stingers, no Monarch butterflies, but plenty of harvestman spiders – what we call daddy longlegs. They seem to have arrived a little early this year.

Here’s another, bees! We have seen only a handful of bumble bees, no yellow jackets or hornets.

Most of these are nature’s way of letting you know what kind of winter to expect. Where bee hives are built is usually an indication of the snowfall to expect. The higher the hives, the more snow to expect, according to folkore.

What remains to be seen is the wooly bear caterpillar. It’s still early for them. They usually appear in September. They are the little black and rust-colored hairy caterpillars that predict the severity of the winter. The longer the rust band on the body, the milder the winter, and vice versa. Last year, I can say I only saw a handful of those, where you normally see them everywhere, especially trying to cross a road. We’ll have to wait and see what happens with them.

We’ll sit back and see how September, and the beginning of fall shapes up. I wouldn’t mind seeing an Indian summer.

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

In the NFL, how wide are the goal post uprights?

Answer can be found here.

by Roland D. Hallee

The biggest complaint I have heard this summer from numerous people is the extremely high number of mosquitoes that have pestered us. I had noticed it myself but attributed it to the cold and wet spring and early summer.

However, there is another reason for the unusual number of those little blood suckers.

Bats. Or the lack thereof.

We have noticed at camp the void of bats that usually fly around at night. We have seen none. And, last week while at a friend’s home for an evening cookout, I noticed a number of bat houses around. When I asked him about them, he said that in the past, they had several bats flying about, but none this year. Not one has been spotted.

What is going on with that?

According to scientists, a fungus known as white nose syndrome is the culprit. Scientists have concluded the fungus has destroyed in excess of 90 percent of the bats in some populations, ranging from Texas and Florida, as far west as Washington state and all the way to the northeastern U.S.

The Smithsonian Magazine approached the subject in 2011 when the problem was first descried as “catastrophic” and the “worst epidemic in years.”

Spores of the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans seem to be both the source and cause of the devastating disease, especially for bats hibernating by the millions in the northeastern U.S. In the four years prior, around 2007 – 2011, an estimated one million bats had already died from the fungus.

The virus was first found in upstate New York in early 2006 when the bats began acting oddly, flying during the day, far from their caves, during brutally cold weather, all uncharacteristic behavior.

Zach Peery, Ph.D., a professor of forest and wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, believes it’s time to step up and implement more vigorous strategies for preventing their waning populations. Peery explains, “Bat declines resulting from white nose syndrome and other factors may compromise potential mosquito suppression, but they also provide opportunities to test the hypothesis that bats limit mosquitoes through a natural experiment.”

A recent study published in the Journal of Wildlife Diseases said the white nose syndrome fungus striking bats in such great numbers isn’t necessarily fatal, but if they survive the initial infection, it may still negatively impact the ability of females to reproduce.

A white nose death is grisly. The fungus hits when the bats’ breathing is low and their tiny heartbeats are at an ebb during hibernation. Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Institutes of Health theorize that the bats die when they awaken from hibernation, and their reactivated immune systems go overboard in an attempt to eliminate the intruding disease, destroying the illness but also tissue bats need to live.

However, while preventive measures have been unsuccessful, there has been a recent breakthrough. Some of the most recent information is that the fungus grows on, not just the noses, but also the ears and wings of bats, striking them as they hibernate and causing them to wake up and burn off the fat stores needed for survival. The fungus is known to thrive only in cold, dark environments (such as caves) with a strict temperature range of 39 – 68 degrees F, so it can only affect bats during hibernation.

A combined research team involving the University of New Hampshire, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the U.S. Forest Service, may have found a possible “Archilles heel,” as the fungus is highly sensitive to UV light. It seems the fungus lacks a key DNA repair enzyme. When exposing the fungi to different UV light intensities, even for a few seconds, and observing how each behave, Jon Palmer, Ph.D., a research botanist in Madison, Wisconsin, wrote, “It is unusual that P. destructans appears to be unable to repair damage caused by UV light. Most organisms that have been found in the absence of light maintain the ability to repair DNA caused by UV light radiation. We are very hopeful that the fungus’ extreme vulnerability to UV light can be exploited to manage the disease and save bats.”

Current evidence indicates that WNS is not transmissible from bats to humans., based on the fact that the fungus only grows in temperatures from 39-68 degrees F., much lower than that of the human body. Also, no human infections have ever been documented after exposure to WNS-infected bats or caves.

Although WNS does not cause illness to humans, a small percentage of bats can be infected with other dangerous diseases, such as rabies. Bats infected with either WNS or rabies may exhibit unusual behavior, which increases the risk of bat-human contact and exposure.

Declines in bat populations can impact human health indirectly since humans depend on bats for important ecosystem services such as controlling pest insects.

What started in New York in 2006 had spread to more than half of the United States and five Canadian provinces by August 2016, leaving millions of dead bats in its path. WNS causes high death rates and fast population declines in the species affected by it, and scientists predict some regional extinction of bat species, one of which is the little brown bat that is the most common in our area.

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

The Toronto Blue Jays won the World Series in 1992 and 1993, but were still defending champions in 1995. Why?

Answer can be found here.