Autumn Breeders

     Here in the Mid-Atlantic States we think of wildlife reproducing in spring and summer, and most species do.  But some kinds of local wildlife breed in autumn, including true katydids, mole crickets, white-tailed deer, elk, brook trout and marbled salamanders.  These interesting creatures add more intrigue and excitement to fall each year.
     True katydids are green, "treetop grasshoppers" that blend well into their food and cover of woodland treetop foliage.  They even have wings that resemble green leaves, which completes their camouflage against birds and other critters that would eat them. 
     Katydids rub a file on one wing against a scraper on another wing to produce the raspy argument of whether Katy did or didn't from the end of July through to a heavy frost in October that kills those treetop fiddlers.  That rhythmic scratching brings the genders together for mating, after which the females deposit eggs in slits they make in tender bark.  The eggs overwinter in those slits.  Nymphs emerge from those eggs the next spring, consume tree leaves and grow to be adult katydids by late July ready to fiddle.
     Mole crickets are an unusual kind of cricket.  They are about an inch and a quarter long, stout, brown, have large, shovel-shaped front legs and live in burrows they dig themselves in damp pastures.  They have small back legs, but can't jump in their burrows anyway, so those legs never developed for leaping.  They eat grass  roots and other underground vegetation.
     In September, male mole crickets chirp loudly, seemingly incessantly, from their burrows, the reason they are clearly heard, but seldom seen.  And their calls sound much like the croaking of frogs.  Each female mates with a male then lays eggs in the back of her burrow, where they overwinter and hatch the next spring.
     White-tailed deer rut from late October, through November and into early December.  Majestic bucks of equal size press their bone antlers together to ritually push each other to determine which one is stronger.  The stronger buck gets most of the girls, and produces quality fawns.  White-tails' time of rut causes fawns to be born about the end of May, when there is much food for their mothers' to produce milk and lots of cover for the fawns to lie in, hidden from predators.
     American elk in Pennsylvania rut during September.  The magnificent bulls squeal loud challenges to one another, and they, too, push bony antlers together to determine the strength of the contestants.  The winners produce hardy, strong calves by the end of May.  Elk breed earlier in autumn than white-tails because their calves are bigger than fawns and need a longer gestation period.
      Brook trout spawn in flowing brooks and streams during October in this area.  At that time, small, running waterways in deciduous woods are roofed by the red, orange and yellow leaves of autumn, making those woods beautiful.
   Adult, breeding trout are also quite striking.  Stream-lined for life in unending currents, their upperparts and flanks are dark with yellow markings, and a few blue-bordered red spots on the flanks.  And they have reddish-orange fins with black-bordered, white leading edges which are their most prominent features.
     Brook trout spawn on the stony bottoms of streams and brooks and females bury their fertilized eggs with gravel they swish over the eggs with their tails.  The growing young are camouflaged against waterway bottoms.  Trout of all ages ingest a variety of invertebrates and small fish.
     The attractive marbled salamanders are four inches long when mature, stout, black and silver members of the mole salamander family in the eastern United States.  They are called mole salamanders because they spend most of their lives hunting invertebrates at night under logs, forest floor leaf cover and shallow burrows in moist soil in the woods.         
     Each adult female marbled salamander lays her 30 to 100 eggs under a fallen log or dead-leaf litter in a depression on a forest floor in a bottomland woods on a rainy night in September or October.  She then stays in that sheltered place with her eggs until they hatch.  But if rains don't come in fall, the eggs can over-winter in the sheltering spot where they were spawned and hatch the next spring when rain and snow melt fill that depression.      
     All these wonderful, intriguing critters add more enjoyment of autumn, when they are spotted.  But they have to be looked for in their habitats.