Hi, all.
I thought I'd make a post about the kind of summer we've been having and how it affects things. Some of you might appreciate what is happening to herps at the northern extreme of their ranges.
It's been very cool this summer at the Tip of the Mitt. I could count the number of days it got over 80*F. on one hand. Many days we were lucky to hit 70*. Also, it rained a lot. Seemed like almost 50% of the time. That's really good for recharging the aquafer, filling the streams and ponds, and also bringing the Great Lakes up about 17 feet. It's been getting cold at night during the month of August, in the 40's lots of times, and even in the 30's a couple nights ago.
What does this all mean? Well lets look at these facts...On 8/14/04 I went out on our property (basically pasture and woodland edge) and found two gravid, female, Eastern garter snakes. On the same day I found a gravid brown snake under a piece of rubber near the house. On 8/15, 8/16, and 8/17 I found the same gravid brown snake under the piece of rubber. I also saw several gravid brown and red-belly snakes in the field during this period. On 8/18 the gravid brown snake was gone and I didn't see any other snakes until about 8/20 when I saw several yearling Eastern garters, about 1/2 doz. newborn garters, and a male red-belly. Since then I've seen a ton of baby E. garters, many adults, and several baby red-bellies, plus adults, several adult brown snakes, none gravid, and finally a baby brown snake tonight.
From this information I learned that these natricines don't always have their babies at the same time each year. Most years they have their babies around the end of the first week in August. I was wondering if this delay in their development and birth would affect their survival rate, but a couple things were apparent. From the time I saw the first baby garters I could tell they were feeding, as about 1/2 of them had a worm or some other food item in their little bellies. Tonight, almost every baby I saw had eaten something and a couple were in shed already. I couldn't believe how fast they started feeding. One more fact that I can relate is that last year, when I thought conditions were perfect, I saw zero brown snakes and red-belly snakes all summer and fall, and very few garters. This year I thought the summer was crummy and there were garters, browns, and red-bellies all summer. I think it means the populations are rebounding and that natricines do well in cool, moist weather.
Here's an adult garter from early this summer...
Here's a baby garter a day or two old...
Now, in the desert Southwest, we have lots of lizards in addition to all the snakes. But in Michigan we have only one little skink. Instead we have lots of amphibians. So, amphibians are important to Northerners. Usually, August is the month all the ponds dry up, so the frogs have to morph out before then to survive. This summer none of the ponds dried up and we had tons of frogs surviving. The leopard frogs take to the open spaces and start to colonize all the pathways and mowed areas of our 20 acres. We have tiny little leopard frogs all over, hundreds of them. Here's a picture of an adult of the green phase, Northern leopard frog, Rana pipiens...
Here's a pic of an adult of the brown phase...
BTW, adult garter snakes really like these leopard frogs too. Can you say food chain?
My last comment is about how the weather affects other things too, like the plant life. Because of the moist conditions there was tremendous growth this summer on trees, bushes, etc. Here's a picture of a 'fire cherry' that normally produces hardly any cherries at all. This year the abundance is obvious...
The wildlife will benefit plenty from the bountiful harvest. Birds just love the cherries. We have another tree called the choke cherry which is full this year too, plus all the cranberries, etc. I can't wait to see all the migrators coming through.
In another two weeks, the snakes will be just about done for the year. At that time we'll mow some of the fields/meadows. However, a few hardy snakes and some amphibians will hang out on nice days until the snow falls 
That's all for now....TC.
