Dusk is especially welcome after a long, hot summer day and it triggers activity in a wide range of suburban wildlife. Last evening, fireflies drifted into the cooling air as a chorus of annual cicadas waxed and waned. A young cottontail scampered across the backyard, stopping to nibble on pockets of clover.
Squadrons of chimney swifts, common nighthawks and purple martins cruised overhead, feasting on rising clouds of insects. Closer to earth, house wrens, cardinals and chickadees made their final rounds of the day as a garter snake waited for a field mouse, beetle or nightcrawler to wander within range. Little brown bats strafed the treetops, snaring hapless mosquitoes and a pair of eastern gray squirrels gathered the first walnuts of the harvest season.
Some of us, not fond of summer heat, relish the hour of dusk, a sign that the oppressive sun is in full retreat. A few weeks past the solstice, we begin to sense the shortening days and anticipate the cool, crisp weather of fall. Indeed, some species of shorebirds, the first fall migrants, are already moving through the Heartland, on their way to southern beaches; summer heat will eventually follow in their wake.
