Vol. 17 No. 2
In this issue...
A Cool Summer
First Annual Nature and Wildlife Photo Contest
Thank You Intrepid Pond Donors!
Protecting the Bushes & Trees at Intrepid Pond
Nature Area/Gibraltar Bay Unit News
Smart Growth on Grosse Ile Video
Upcoming Events...
Saturday November
7
Annual Membership Meeting
10:00AM - 11:30AM
Centennial Farm
Recreation Building
Continental Breakfast
A Cool Summer
by Ingo Hasserodt
It was an unusually cool summer. In July the thermometer reached the average normal temperature only twice. Most days were 5-10 degrees below normal.
Meteorologists say this was caused by the midlevel jet stream-that meandering river of high altitude wind that separates the cold arctic air from the warm subtropical air-dropping over Michigan, allowing cool Canadian air to infiltrate.
In general, nature does not seem to have suffered, but for the purple martins it is a disaster. They lost about all their fledglings to starvation when coolness kept away flying insects-their only prey. Swallows did not seem to do much better. This is the first in many years that the purple martins will leave Michigan for South America without a new generation. We be watching for them in the spring, with anticipation.