Carol in Florida left a great comment on the blog yesterday.
She has observed a few oddities with the trees and plants in west-central Florida over the recent days -- she says the native Florida elm is beginning to drop leaves already-- about 2 months early (usually late September) and the native choke cherry trees are also dropping their leaves about 6 weeks too early. She has also noticed that some of the native wildflowers are beginning to bloom, and they too, are about 4-6 weeks early.
So have you seen any "environmental" signs around your neck of the woods that we could be facing an early fall and potentially a long, cold winter?
I am curious to hear from all parts of the country.
We haven't seen any evidence of early leaf fall in North East Iowa. We have oak, maple, ash, apple and choke cherry on our property. Haven't seen any evidence in our area either. We've had a cool summer with quite a few record lows and low maximum temperatures in July.
ReplyDeleteI noticed that the hummingbirds are still here. They are usually gone by now. The waxwings have not yet arrived, they are late in coming this year.
ReplyDeleteAppro.25 Hummingbirds arrived 28JULY consuming 2 qts daily.
ReplyDeleteRecord amount of Black Bear sightings/incidents within 5 miles of here(Stock Hill,Ga).
Lifetime resident said this has never happened and he saw 3 large bears(500,400,300 LBS) together which never happened in his lifetime(50 years+).
No sign of early leaf turning.
Deer,Blue Birds,Barn Swallows,possum,raccoon etc populations high.
Chris, we've seen a little here, a little here, but none here or here.
ReplyDeleteA beautiful weekend up here, for certain! In the Mining Journal this morning an article in the Weekend Section talked about how recent rain brings out new visitors... which in this case are birds. The Piping Plover nested on Whitefish Point for the first time in 23 years.
In Western NC the rhododendron are still bloomin in many places. I have not seen blooms this late before
ReplyDelete02AUG2009 - Today at the gym, my wife got out of the car, looked at the tree just in front of her, it was a maple tree, and the leaves were changing.
ReplyDeleteThis sort of thing is not too unusual for North Carolina when we have a dry July. (and we did have a dry July).
Here is a story that discusses this situation in today's paper:
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1630889.html
I have seen more black bear than usual, including these guys coming onto our property.We've noticed a large amount of doves here, some flocks. I don't remember ever seeing doves here before, at least not in these numbers.
ReplyDeleteA friend, the editor of Maine Nature News, commented to me today that she had noticed the swallows (tree and barn) in her area of Washington County had apparently left already. And the animals have been behaving strangely -- two bears have been plaguing her area, a moose tramps through her garden day and night, but few deer have been seen.
ReplyDeleteHere in Penobscot county, more in the center of the state, we still have our swallows, tons of hummers and gold finches at their feeders and have seen evidence of more deer than we would like in and around the gardens.
We had a record cool July,Which many Really appreciated!
ReplyDeleteBesides that and being a little dry I have not noticed much change from normal,maybe less Forgs in the marsh bc of lack of water,plenty of sketters though!