Going Out

By Ed Wesely

A singular autumn

First, I should remind readers that the author of this column requires a resting period—if not total hibernation—during the cold months. After this issue, “Going Out” will appear once a month, at least until spring.

Where are the ladybird beetles? Normally, in late October, window sashes are jammed with these little creatures, better known as “ladybugs.” They also fill a hollow at the base of our large maple tree, where they overwinter—on the south side.

But no ladybirds have appeared in the house and none at the maple tree. And I can’t account for it.

Late colors. I’d love to know what’s delayed the fall colors. On my road, things normally peak about Columbus Day or just before. But as I write this on October 28, most colors have barely begun to wane. Even our big maple, which harbors the ladybirds, is flush with yellow-gold leaves about two weeks later than usual.

Has it been the sequence of cool, cloudy days, coupled with six inches of October rain? Or the delayed frosts? Or is it a rebound from the drought?

Late flowers. Two Buddleia (“butterfly”) bushes in the garden, and a bed of orange and yellow calendulas are still producing flowers and nectar. The calendulas are frost hardy and it’s not unusual to find them in late October.

But a couple of light frosts, and a 27-degree morning on October 24, should have extinguished the Buddleias.

	Contributed photo by Barbara Yeaman Ed Wesely carries precious monarch butterflies to Harrisburg where he releases them to continue their annual migratory flight to Mexico. (Click for larger image)

Are the butterflies finished? October’s generally a great month for “cabbage” and “sulphur” butterflies, small visitors that glean nectar from asters and hardy cultivated plants. But not this year.

The big problem for them has been rainy, cool weather and a dearth of the bright sunny days they require.

Bright October days are also vital to monarch butterflies migrating to Mexico, which has made this autumn chancy for them. I haven’t observed a wild monarch around Milanville since October 8, compared to November 1 for a migrant I spotted in Honesdale in 2001.

This summer, monarchs were in short supply, but early October produced scores of them, especially in Honesdale and Hawley. Still, my records end with a notation for October 8 when I glimpsed a single monarch “at the door of the Villa Roma Club’s recreation center (near Callicoon) about 5:15 p.m.”

If cool weather persists, October 8 will mark the earliest date I’ve recorded the season’s “last migrant.”

The photograph shows me bearing butterfly cages into a meadow west of Harrisburg, PA on October 14, with Blue Mountain (called Kittatinny Ridge, in New Jersey) in the left background. Because it was a rare, sunny day we decided to carry to safety all 31 monarchs that I’d reared and been feeding in Milanville, while hoping for a “window of opportunity.”

Near the village of Wentzville, at the head of the Cumberland Valley—which becomes the fabled Shenandoah Valley in Virginia—we released our charges and bade them bon voyage.

The autumn sky. Elsewhere in the paper is a notice about the Delaware Highlands Conservancy’s astronomy program: a last chance to glimpse the galaxies and nebulae of deep space with superior telescopes and to learn the autumn constellations. The program will begin at 7:30 p.m. on November 1 at the Conservancy’s nature center in Milanville. For information call: 570/729-7053.