Photo by Roland Hallee, taken on Sunday, September 22.

by Roland D. Hallee

Well, my article on Woolly Bear caterpillars in the September 12, 2024, issue of The Town Line, generated some emails.

One reader wrote: “According to your article in this week’s issue of The Town Line you haven’t been seeing any Woolly Bear caterpillars. Maybe it’s because they all migrated to my boyfriend’s house on the Ward Road, in Augusta. We have been spotting many of them since last week and the orange band on all of them is quite long. I guess that means we’ll have a mild winter. Personally, I would prefer snow over rain that freezes over. Snow is much easier to deal with.”

Another wrote: “Seeing lots of woolly bears. Everyone has a long brown stripe.”

Still another: “I saw one large healthy-acting woolly bear a couple days ago, and am pleased to report his orange band was at least half his body length.”

Another reader, who lives in Palermo wrote: “I live on Hostile Valley Road, in Palermo, and I just wanted to let you know the ‘bears’ are doing well over here. I walk many days and do a lot of gardening. I’ve seen at least a dozen so far these past two weeks. Most have been the traditionally marked version with a mid-body red/brown combined with the two black ends. Look very proportional with the blacks together equaling the red. I have seen one that was black on one end with the rest of the body red/brown.”

So, with all of that, guess what happened last Sunday? I saw two woolly bears, and managed to photograph one of them. Again, large rust colored band compared to the black tips.

From all reports, all the woolly bear sightings have mentioned a long rust-colored band, one e-mailer saying the band occupied at least half of the body.

Let’s hope the little critter is correct and we will have a relatively mild winter, as in the last couple of years.

Old farmers’ folklore states the severity, or mildness, of an upcoming winter is predicted with the woolly bear’s markings. The wider the rust-colored band, the milder the winter.

Other folklore to consider, the height of bee hives. The higher from the ground, the more snow can be expected. I have seen a few bee hives this year, one was in the ground, the others attached to the corners, in the rafters under the roofs, which is pretty normal.

Also, the amount of difficulty peeling an onion. My wife and I eat a lot of onions, and this summer, they have peeled easily, another sign of a mild winter.

Moose sighting on Killdeer Point

How many people witnessed the moose sighting on Killdeer Point last week? According to those who did, the moose took a swim, emerged on Killdeer Point, then went for a stroll up the road. Where it went from there, nobody seems to have seen that.

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

The Boston Red Sox have won nine World Series. Only two other teams have more. Who are they?

Gray squirrel

by Roland D. Hallee

While driving to work on the Cross Hill Road, in Vassalboro, one morning last week, I saw a black squirrel. This caused me to remember an email I received a little while back from a reader who said, “I have red, black gray and a new one – dark gray with a brown belly – what is this one? How many litters can they have? I am almost overrun with them all.”

Well, first off, mother squirrels typically have two to four babies in a litter, and have one or two litters a year.

Squirrels are different colors due to genetics, which control the amount of melanin, or pigment, in their fur. Here are some reasons why squirrels have different colors:

Red squirrel

– Gray and red squirrels: These squirrels have a mixture of light and dark bands in their fur, which create their overall color and pattern.
– White squirrels: These squirrels can be albino, leucistic, or fail to deposit pigment in their fur.
– Black squirrels: These squirrels have a genetic mutation that causes them to produce too much melanin, a dark pigment. This condition is called melanism.
– Brown-black squirrels: These squirrels have one copy of a black gene and one copy of a gray gene.
– Jet black squirrels: These squirrels have two copies of the black gene.
– Interspecies breeding: Some squirrels’ black coloring may be due to interbreeding with fox squirrels.

The MC1R gene controls how much dark pigment is added to a squirrel’s fur as it grows. A missing piece of DNA in this gene increases the production of dark pigment, resulting in darker fur.

Black squirrel

Eastern grey squirrels come in a variety of color morphs, including grey and black. All individuals contain a gene, MC1R, that controls how much dark pigment is added as a squirrel’s hairs grow. When a tiny piece of DNA is missing from this gene, it boosts the production of dark pigment and makes the fur darker.

Albino gray squirrels are the rarest form of white squirrel. Mammalogists estimate the odds of a female gray squirrel giving birth to an albino offspring are 1 in 100,000.

Biologists estimate the black squirrel is unusually rare with only one squirrel in 10,000 wearing the dusky coat. This mutant of the gray squirrel resides primarily in northern climates.

Western grays are predominantly cool gray and white and don’t have brown on their faces, in contrast to the two introduced species who have a lot of orangey-brown all over their faces. The black squirrels that are common in some areas are simply a melanistic (hyper-pigmented) version of a regular eastern gray squirrel.

As for the dark gray with a brown belly, that one is a mystery. The closest I can come is called the Prevost squirrel, but it is only found in Thai-Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo, and northern Sulawesi.

White squirrel

Here are some things you should know about squirrels:

– What does it mean when a squirrel holds its tail on its back? In most cases a good first guess is the behavior relates directly to an individual’s survival or to its reproductive success. One suggestion has been the tail behavior has to do with protection from predation. If you look at a squirrel with its tail up, the silhouette appears to be the head looking backward.
– If a juvenile squirrel continuously approaches and follows people, then mom is probably gone. In this case, you should contact a licensed wildlife rehabilitator because the baby is very hungry and needs care.
– While squirrels born in the wild may not be particularly friendly, they do seem to remember their human hosts. In some cases, they even return to reconnect with their human saviors. Squirrels are also more than willing to return to a food source over and over again.
– Do not attempt to catch a squirrel. If you try to touch it or grab it, it will likely do anything it can to escape. This will likely cause the squirrel great stress and fear and may even provoke it to attack you or contort its body in a way that will cause it pain.

Squirrels are everywhere, but do we understand them? Maybe now we can.

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

Combined, how many championships have Boston pro teams won?

wooly bear caterpillar

by Roland D. Hallee

Send out a BOLO! I got that from NCIS, it means “be on the lookout”, what they used to call an APB (all points bulletin – those of you my age will remember).

Has anyone seen a woolly bear caterpillar this year? Usually, by mid-September they are everywhere. I haven’t seen a one.

However, I have been seeing a yellow, fuzzy caterpillar that has me curious.

Now that the days are getting shorter and the night time temperatures are dipping into the 40s, It’s Woolly Bear Caterpillar season once again! Remember, the woolly bear caterpillar, according to folklore, predicts the severity, or mildness, of the approaching winter with the size of the rust-colored band it wears. The wider the band, the milder the winter. Since we haven’t seen any black/rust woolly bears, let’s take a look at the yellow woolly bear.

There are actually a lot of different fuzzy caterpillars out and about right now looking for a last meal and a good place to hibernate for the winter. One of which is the Yellow Woolly Bear Caterpillar. While they may look like your favorite pair of fuzzy slippers they are so much more interesting.

Yellow Woolly Bear

The Yellow Woolly Bear Caterpillar is part of a whole tribe of caterpillars named for their fuzzy appearance. The tribe name actually derives from the Greek word “arktos”, which translates to “bear”. It’s not until the Yellow Woolly Bear Caterpillar matures and goes through metamorphosis that it turns into a tiger – moth. The Virginian Tiger Moth to be precise.

Changing from a bear to a tiger isn’t this critter’s only trick. The Yellow Woolly Bear Caterpillar isn’t always yellow. Sometimes it’s a reddish or brownish color. While some caterpillars may decide they like yellow and stick to it, others start out yellowish and then change to a darker color when they molt. They are either all yellowish, all orangish/reddish, or all brownish. If you find a super fuzzy caterpillar that is part black and part orange, or some other mix of hair colors, it’s a different critter.

The Yellow Woolly Bear Caterpillar is native to the United States and can be found throughout much of North America, from Canada through Mexico. There are even some records on iNaturalist of the species being found in the more northern parts of South America.

Orange Woolly Bear

The Yellow Woolly Bear can live in many habitats as well, anywhere from wooded and forested areas, to meadows, fields, gardens, and occasionally agricultural areas. The broad distribution range of and variety of favorable habitats for this species is likely due to its generalist feeding behavior. The Yellow Woolly Bear Caterpillar will eat a wide range of plant leaves from basil, to the clover in the yard, to maple trees – it will even occasionally eat milkweed plants. Luckily the caterpillars are not particularly numerous, preferring to put distance between themselves and their siblings, so the caterpillars rarely cause enough damage to be considered a pest.

The fuzzy Yellow Woolly Bear Caterpillars eventually turn into lovely white moths with yellow and orange patches on their bodies. While not nearly as hairy as the caterpillar, the moths do retain some fluffy looking leg warmers and hats. Once the caterpillars turn into moths, they are usually called Virginian Tiger Moths.

Virginian Tiger Moth

The moths don’t eat. At the most, they may take a quick drink of nectar from a nearby flower. While the caterpillar’s primary goal was to eat and grow as big as possible (without being eaten itself), the moth’s goal is to find a mate and bring the next generation of woolly bears into existence. Here’s where it gets really interesting, though. Remember those pictures of crazy looking moths with tentacles coming out of their butts that went viral for a while? Yeah, these moths can do that, too. Or at least a similar variation of the tentacle butt thing.

The tentacle looking things are actually organs the male moths have and can inflate to produce and spread pheromones that attract female moths. Kind of like a cologne. While they look different depending on the species, some are tentacle-like, others more like pencils or feather dusters, most male moths have them.

So, now that we know a little more about these woolly bear variations, I will know they are of the woolly bear family. The only thing I wasn’t able to find was if they have the weather predicting powers like the traditional woolly bear.

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

In 2014, which versatile Red Sox player become the first to start in seven different positions in a single season?