Frogs, Crickets & Grass Snakes; Queen Wasps & Ripening Tomatoes - Ah, November In England, 2011!

[hatrack]

Poppies in the long grass, frogs croaking for mates, wasps droning lazily at the window, tomatoes and strawberries ripening in garden pots and crickets buzzing at dusk: these are the sights and sounds of an English summer. Except that they have all been recorded in the last week or so, even as shops are decking out in shiny baubles and cranking out Christmas carols. Phenologists who track the subtle changes in the seasons over decades have reported for some time that plants and animals are breeding, flowering, fruiting and hibernating earlier and earlier.

But this year earlier-than-ever autumn colours and fruits have been mixed with prolonged signs of summer wildlife such as dragonflies, butterflies and grass snakes, and spring flowers such as magnolia, apple blossom and honeysuckle blooming – making it a truly extraordinary season. Summing up this topsy-turvy behaviour, a swallow – whose arrival in northern Europe traditionally marks the start of summer – was spotted this month at the RSPB bird reserve at Saltholme on Teesside.

Nature is certainly alive with freak occurrences and oddities, but even ecologists agree that what is happening now in nature reserves, in gardens and along hedgerows and verges is remarkable, prompting comparison between 2011 and the previously notable years of 1986 and 1975.

"Our countryside is much more flowery than it should be," says Matthew Oates, a National Trust ecologist. Richard Bullock, another professional nature watcher at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust conservation project in London, reports the sounds of crickets, grasshoppers and marsh frogs croaking into the first week of November.

EDIT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/13/warm-autumn-wildlife-oddities

[Cirque du So-What]

1. Enjoy it while you can

If melting glaciers continues unabated, fresh water infusion into the ocean and subsequent changes in salinity has the potential to disrupt the Gulf Stream, which is the only reason England (and Ireland and Iceland and elsewhere in the region) enjoy such a moderate climate at high latitudes. Without the Gulf Stream heat conveyor, England's climate could revert to one similar to Labrador's, which is much more severe but which lies at about the same latitude.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. We had late spring blooming trees stay green until mid summer then bloom for weeks

longer than they usually do.
Natchez white crepe myrtles bloom in late spring..end of May, here.
By the time the pink crepe myrtles start their bloom end of June/early July, the white ones are done blooming.
Except this year. Possibly due to late rains.
The whites bloomed in late June, both colors bloomed all summer long until end of August. All over the city.
Very weird.

[LiberalEsto]

3. Roses blooming in Maryland nt