Climax of Summer

     The climax of summer is noticeable in many ways in Lancaster County farmland during late July and into early August.  There is a feeling of peace and relaxation across the landscape that wasn't there earlier in summer when birds and other creatures were busily raising young and plants were vigorously growing.  Now nature is content, having brought another generation of plants and animals to maturity.  Now there is a feeling of rest, a catching of breath, before the bustling preparation for the coming winter.  
     The climax of summer is fulfilled with mature vegetation, many roadside flowers of several kinds, butterflies, stridulating insects and gatherings of post-breeding birds and their young prior to their migrations.  And it is bountiful with the maturity of crops, orchard fruits and garden vegetables.
     Roadside bouquets of wild flowers are lovely at this time of year.  And each patch of blooms is different in size and species make-up.  The blue of chicory blossoms, white of Queen-Anne's-lace, yellow of butter-and-eggs and pink of red clover, bouncing bet and common milkweed flowers are some of the most common colors along country roads.
     A variety of bees, colorful butterflies and other kinds of insects sip nectar from roadside blossoms, adding to the beauties of those blooms.  Several each of cabbage white, yellow sulphur, meadow fritillary and monarch butterflies, plus other kinds of butterflies flutter among those roadside flowers. 
     By late July, males of a variety of grasshoppers, tree crickets and katydids begin rubbing their wings, or legs and wings, together to make trilling, chirping or chanting noises to attract females of their respective kinds to them for mating.  Most of these related species begin stridulating at dusk and continue into the night.  The sounds they create are much a part of summer's climax.
     Interestingly, grasshoppers, tree crickets and katydids live in different niches, which lessens competition among them for space and food.  Grasshoppers dwell in tall grass in fields and along roadsides.  Tree crickets live in shrubbery and katydids are residents of tree tops, mostly in woods.  All species of this family of insects graze on vegetation in their respective niches.
     Male annual cicadas begin buzzing and whining from tree tops at this time of year.  Annual cicadas spend a year as grubs in the ground sucking on tree sap.  Then, one night late in July, each grub emerges from the ground, climbs an object above the soil, crawls out of its exoskeleton and flies off at daybreak.  When the temperature warms, each male begins to vibrate plates on his abdomen that creates the buzzing that brings females to him for mating. 
     Late in July and into August, several kinds of post-breeding birds join into flocks of their respective types in croplands in preparation of winter's arrival.  Congregations of barn swallows and tree swallows are now noticed on roadside wires where they rest between feeding forays on flying insects.  Those swallow flocks get larger and larger and finally drift south for the winter.  Groups of purple grackles get larger and larger in cut hay fields where they eat invertebrates and seeds, then abruptly disappear when those birds wander south.  Scores and scores of mourning doves collect in harvested grain and hay fields where they feed on seeds and waste grain.  Scores of killdeer plovers, a kind of inland shorebirds, and horned larks, which are open country birds about the size of sparrows, also gather on harvested grain and hay fields, and tobacco fields to eat invertebrates.  Killdeer and lark pairs nested on bare ground in cropland earlier in the year. 
     And, perhaps most excitingly, a variety of sandpipers pass through Lancaster County farmland on their way to their wintering territories at this time.  Least sandpipers, pectoral sandpipers and lesser yellowlegs are the sandpiper species most common in this area's cropland during late July into August.  The first two kinds of sandpipers nest on the Arctic tundra while the yellowlegs raise young around lakes in Canada's forests.  Here, as migrants, they stop to rest, and feed on invertebrates, along the muddy edges of farm ponds, streams and flooded fields and pastures.  Eventually, they, too, push farther south for the winter.               
     The climax of summer is a beautiful, bountiful time of year.  It is a good time to be outdoors.