Easter with Birds, Bunnies and Butterflies.
In the garden and just down the road in April
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Rabbits first …
A couple of Eastern Cottontail Rabbits have been regulars in the garden recently. The slightly smaller one on the left was doing much rolling around and attempting to interest the other … wondering if we starting the process of making more rabbits?
“This is one of the blessings of the urban nature project: without the overtly magnificent to stop us in our tracks, we must seek out the more subversively magnificent. Our sense of what constitutes wildness is expanded, and our sense of wonder along with it.”
― Lyanda Lynn Haupt
We have had a few recent days with just enough warmth to encourage me to potter in the garden … and then, mid-week, it snowed. The snow did not settle but it was persistent and jolly cold. Then the warmth yesterday made a pleasant walk to the polling station to vote for the guys in the white hats. The early ephemerals are flowering. Things are, on the whole, looking up.
First Spring Plants
I emigrated to Canada and settled in Baie-D’Urfé during the last week of March 1998. I knew about Canadian winters in theory but only realized they were serious when shortly after Air Canada’s London to Montreal flight had taken off from Heathrow Airport, the pilot’s voice came onto the intercom. He had just heard that that morning the first cracks were appearing in the ice on the river and the temperature in Montreal had gone up more than ten degrees overnight. The passengers erupted into shouts and whistles and screams of delight and smiles broke out all around me.
Clearly, I thought, the end of winter is a truly big deal in Quebec. Especially so as that was the winter of the Ice Storm, about which I probably don’t need to say much more. Montrealers were certainly ready for warmer days to arrive that year.
April is when things really start moving in the natural world. Although we can have snow, sometimes considerable amounts of snow, falling during the month of April, it usually doesn’t stick around for long. By the time April arrives we are already a couple of weeks past the vernal equinox and the hours of daylight are longer than the hours of dark. The world begins to warm and gradually signs of change can be discerned … though warm coats continue to be needed most days.
It is also the month of the “Ephemerals”. Although vast areas of land were cleared in the last couple of hundred years for agriculture and housing and roads, the natural environment here is forest. Accordingly, the native plants that still grow in town evolved to thrive in an environment which plunges the ground into deep shadow once the leaves fill out on the trees. The ephemerals are species that cope with this by emerging as soon as the snows have gone. They immediately rush to get growth, flowering, pollination and fruiting all out of the way before the leaves cast them into shadow and while they can benefit from the increasingly strengthening sun.
There is a broad range of ephemerals to be found in town – some of them encouraged by gardeners, while others emerge in the quieter and less cultivated corners. Bright yellow ‘Coltsfoot’ (Tussilago) is hard to miss as it shouts at you from the verges of many roads and the edges of gardens. Unfortunately, it looks a bit like a small dandelion and is non-native so, I suspect, is mown off or dug out by those gardeners who like their lawns unblemished. Look out too for the white flowers of Dutchman’s Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) standing above their leaves. There will soon be Trilliums, Scillas, and several others. Take a walk to the arboretum, where there are some discrete patches of Spring Beauty (Claytonia) to be found around the end of the month. These are tiny pale, pink mottled, flowers growing close to the ground, often snuggling up beside mature trees and a real delight if you find them … I confess that we have not yet located any in Baie-D’Urfé, but they would certainly like it here if we were not around – perhaps there are some in a garden somewhere.
The ephemeral that we are always waiting for and are drawn to, and not only because they thrive under trees in our garden, is Bloodroot (Sanguinaria). When there is little else growing, their appearance really says, “spring is here”. You almost certainly know this flower. It emerges from the leaf litter once the sun starts to warm the ground like a fat green thumb and grows rapidly to about six or eight inches high. It’s rather like a hand-rolled cigar with tightly furled green leaves surrounding a stalk at the tip of which is the flower bud. Soon after, the multi-petalled white flower opens to reveal the bright yellow reproductive organs, which almost immediately act as a draw to early appearing pollinator insects such as small solitary bees and early hover flies. The leaves begin to unfurl, the fertilised flowers fade and a seed pod swells at their base, and the shadow of the opening leaves shades them as April turns towards May. The white of the petals is that bright white that practically glows at sunset. Lovely things.
One April (and May and later) plant that is much less desirable but which is to be found all over town is Garlic Mustard. This is an alien invader. It was brought to the continent by early settlers because of its garlic smell and taste but while there are natural controls in Europe, here is we have a harmful invasive that is left to run wild and will prevent the ephemerals from growing by virtue of inhibitory chemicals it secretes from its roots into the soil. I am very much a believer of live and let live when it comes to wildlife and plants, but this is one of the few exceptions. Should you see a spreading mat of green leaves topped by small white flowers, the leaves of which smell of garlic when rubbed, then please pull it out. If allowed to go to seed, each plant produces several thousand dust-like seeds which remain viable for several years. It has to go!
Butterflies and Other Insects are bound to catch your eye.
Just because it’s only a week or two since the last snow doesn’t mean there are no insects about yet.
At least a couple of species of butterflies gain time in the reproductive race by overwintering as unmated adults. One of the most colourful of these that you can look for this week is the orange and dark brown Eastern Comma Butterfly (Polygonia comma)
The Eastern Comma has two broods each year. Overwintering adults usually begin flying in April around here, and they lay eggs that produce offspring that in turn emerge as adults in late June and July. These summer-flying butterflies produce a second brood that becomes evident from late August into November, which enter hibernation and overwinter in a sheltered nook, waiting through the winter to emerge next April. Caterpillars feed on elm tree leaves and nettles while the adults feed on rotting fruit and tree sap, the latter of which is quite plentiful as the sap rises in our maple and other tree species before the leaves appear. I commonly see Eastern Commas flitting around the garden on warm sunny days, often resting on a log or stone to soak up the heat of the sun.
A similar, if less colourful species that is may also be seen about now, is the Mourning Cloak butterfly which likewise overwinters as unmated adults which appear in spring, mate and lay eggs. There is only one generation for this species each year, but they are not at all hard to see. This is a species that is also to be found outside North America, in fact, pretty well all around the globe at these latitudes - In England it is known as the Camberwell Beauty. It’s almost certain that you will see them in or near your garden, and they most certainly fly in some of our parks such as near the trees in the Fritz Park.
There are some 50 or more species of butterfly, and many more moths, to be seen in Quebec, but we will have to wait until later in the summer for decent numbers to be found on the town list. You might see a small blue Northern Azure butterfly if you are lucky.
There are other April insects, if insects are your interest, as I earnestly trust they are. Ladybirds, or Lady Beetles, will not be hard to see. Today a vast majority, rather than being members of the several native North American species, will probably be Asian Lady Beetles that have muscled their way in and rather taken over the neighbourhood. The Asian species have many forms and a varying number of spots, but they can all be identified by a white mark on their carapace just behind the head that is in the form of the letter M. Too many of these will have overwintered in our houses somewhere and be demanding liberty by now.
Early, I talked about the ephemeral flowers of the woodland floor. They need pollinating and that is mostly achieved by visits from early emerging small solitary bees and hoverflies (also known as flower flies) which move rapidly from flower to flower. Also, and hard to miss as they are large, will be overwintering and just emerging Dark or Northern Paper Wasps. These will be females, known as foundresses rather than queens, looking to find a suitable place to start and nest and raise the next generation. Unlike the well-known Yellow Jackets, these wasps are relatively slim and almost black, with narrow yellow bands separating the segments. They are only likely to be aggressive if they are defending their nest, so you can let them go about their business in peace. Should you be unlucky enough to be stung by one, I can tell you from personal experience that their sting is a lot more painful than that of the wasps we usually worry about.
Indoors and in sheds, some spiders will be emerging. Look out for the small, fast moving Eastern Parson Spider, so named for the pale mark on its back that is supposedly in the form of an ancient preachers' cravat. I typically see these scampering across a floor indoors.
Great read, Richard! You've captured spring in Quebec perfectly...particularly how we bounce between rapture and despair depending on what the weather decides to do...
I was lucky to see a kingfisher at the bottlm of the garden this morning and later I was yelled at by a red winged black bird while I was out cleaning up a flower bed...both signs that spring has finally sprung here in St-Eustache!! Happy Easter. 😊
Your invasive is our valued plant! Garlic Mustard is an important plant for one of our earliest butterflies, the Orange Tip, which lays its eggs on its leaves.