In August

Bon Voyage to the swallows. For me, summer ends when our resident barn swallows vanish during August’s dog days, about a month before the autumnal equinox.

Each year they measure their brief stay in our barn by a strict timetable. Late April is for inspecting and patching old nests or building new ones; June and July are for hatching, feeding and fledging two broods of four to five young. And whether it be a tropical summer, or cool and rainy, the second set of hatchlings in our barn must be fledged by mid-August.

When that’s done, and flocks of 40 or more adults and juveniles gather on the barn roof, one morning, to chatter without scolding me or my cat, it reminds us (without consulting a calendar) that it’s probably August 16 or 17. And that quiet will reign tomorrow, and a red leaf or two may drift our way.

Monarch Program. So far, this has been a good summer for monarch butterflies. In 2004, we’d hatched just 28 monarchs by August 31, but this year the tally on August 15 was already 50 butterflies—with dozens more chrysalises in the barn.

Even so, the long-range prognosis for the species isn’t rosy. For a discussion of the population status and a chance to examine monarch eggs, caterpillars and adults, we invite readers to attend our annual monarch program at the Butterfly Barn in Milanville on Saturday, August 20 at 10:00 a.m. As always, children are welcome.

We’ll also tag and release several monarchs and allow children to take home and hatch a monarch chrysalis.

For more information and/or directions to the Butterfly Barn, call 570/729-7053 or 570/226-3164. Or email info@butterflybarn.org.