Nature’s Calendar: A Summer Almanac

Summer brings new opportunities for nature enthusiasts.

Peterborough Examiner  – June 20, 2025 – by Drew Monkman 

The celestial wheel has once again brought us to the summer solstice and a new, exciting season. The American nature writer Hal Borland spoke of late June as “long, sweet days we bought and paid for with long, cold nights and short bitter days at the dark turn of the year.” Thinking back to this year’s snowy, cold winter, we have every right to relish and embrace summer’s arrival. Although summer brings new opportunities for nature enthusiasts, this is a season of relative calm after the flurry of “first-of-the-year” events that characterize spring.  

With each new season I like to take time to focus and reflect on nature’s cyclical rhythms. We live in a linear culture punctuated by dizzying change and uncertainty. For Western cultures like ours, time is seen as a straight line with past, present and future almost totally separate. We desperately need a counterbalance. As Indigenous people have known for millennia, there’s deep comfort and meaning to be found in seeing time more as a rotating wheel with the recurrence each season of natural events close to the same date year after year.  

To enjoy nature happenings with others and to learn from local experts, consider joining the Peterborough Field Naturalists. They have a full slate of outings this summer. Go to https://peterboroughnature.org/ for more information. Also, remember to use the free iNaturalist, Merlin and eBird apps to identify and document the species you come across.

Late June

• June 21 marks the summer solstice. The sun rises and sets at its furthest points north. Watch the eastern and western horizons for the next week or so to see where the sun rises and sets from a vantage point near you. Do so again at the fall equinox and winter solstice. You’ll be amazed at the difference.
• Watch for turtles along roadsides and other sandy locations where they lay their eggs. If you see a turtle on the road – and if it’s safe to stop – help it get across. If you find an injured turtle, call the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre immediately at 705-741-5000.
• The first monarch butterflies should be arriving any day now. According to the Monarch Watch Blog, eight colonies were located this winter season in Mexico with a total area of 1.79 hectares, a 99% increase over last year (0.90 ha). However, this is still well below the 2004-2024 average of 3.08 hectares.
• Late June nights are alive with fireflies. The males will typically fly low over a meadow and flash their heatless light in a specific pattern, colour and duration. The females then respond with her own luminous signal.  

July

• Family groups of common mergansers are often seen feeding and traveling along shorelines in the northern Kawarthas. Because broods of mergansers sometimes combine, it is not uncommon to see a female with a parade of 20 or more young in tow.
• Common milkweed is in flower and its rich, honey-sweet perfume fills the early summer air. The scent serves to attract insects whose feet will inadvertently pick up the flowers’ sticky pollinia – small packets containing pollen – and transfer them to another plant. 
• Dragonflies and damselflies are abundant this month with some even turning up in gardens. Dragonflies have thick bodies, and their wings are open at rest. Damselflies are usually much smaller, have thin bodies and their wings are closed or only partially spread. Many of the latter are blue in colour and include different bluets. Among the most common dragonflies are the various darners and skimmers. An online guide can be found at https://onnaturemagazine.com/odonata-guide.html
• Mid-July is synonymous with the highest butterfly diversity with species like the various skippers, crescents and fritillaries on the wing. For the past 25 years, local naturalists have participated in the Petroglyphs Butterfly Count, recording an impressive 75 species. The count is part of a continent-wide survey organized by the National Butterfly Association. This year’s count takes place on July 19. All skill levels are welcome to participate, since each party will have an experienced counter. This is an excellent way to learn about butterflies! To register, email Martin Parker at mparker19@cogeco.ca
• Summer is a wonderful time to enjoy the wide abundance of ferns that we have in the Kawarthas. The Warsaw Caves Conservation Area is a fern hotspot. 
• Watch for mushrooms such as white pine boletes and fly agarics. Summer often provides the greatest variety of species of fungi.  
• The ghostly-white Indian pipe blooms in the heavy shade of hardwood forests. 

August

• Insect song is one of nature’s late summer highlights. Nearly all of it comes courtesy of crickets, katydids, grasshoppers and cicadas. It’s very satisfying to be able to put a name to the insect you’re hearing. For example, the soft, rhythmic “treet…treet…treet” of the snowy tree cricket sounds like a gentle-voiced spring peeper. A great insect song resource can be found at https://songsofinsects.com/.
• Small dragonflies known as meadowhawks abound. Mature males are red, while females and immature males are yellowish. They are common in suburban gardens. 
• Fall migration is in full swing by mid- to late August, with numerous warblers, vireos, flycatchers, and even common nighthawks moving through. One of the best places to see nighthawks is along the Indian River in places like Back Dam Park near Warsaw. Migration peaks around August 20 but continues into the first week of September. Go in the evening and watch the sky for loose flocks.  
• Goldenrods reach peak bloom at month’s end and become the dominate flowers of roadsides and fields. These plants are veritable insect magnets.
• Late summer sees a spike in wasp numbers. Because workers must collect protein for the larvae in the nests, they are invaluable in controlling the many garden pests on which they prey. Wasps are also important pollinators.

September

• Birders flock to local fall migration hotspots like the Lakefield Sewage Lagoons, the Otonabee Gravel Pit Conservation Area, Meadowvale Park and the Lang-Hastings Trail between Drummond and Heritage Lines. 
• Chinook and coho salmon leave Lake Ontario to spawn in tributaries of the Ganaraska River. Huge salmon can be seen jumping up the fish ladder at Corbett’s Dam on Cavan Street in Port Hope. It’s quite a spectacle!
• By late September, asters reign supreme. Their purples, mauves, and whites light up fields and roadsides and bring the year’s wildflower parade to a close. Watch especially for New England, heath, panicled, and heart-leaved asters. They make a great addition to any pollinator garden.
• Most years, Virginia creeper vine, poison ivy, choke cherry and staghorn sumac reach their colour peak at about the fall equinox, which occurs this year on September 22. Take time to see where the sun rises and sets on this date, compared to June.  

RECORD CO2 LEVEL

Like the glass walls that trap heat from the sun in an actual greenhouse, gases in our atmosphere such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane also trap heat from the sun. In May, atmospheric CO2 peaked above 430 parts per million (ppm) for the first time ever.  As you can see by these numbers, the increase has been relentless. 1750 (pre-industrial): 280 ppm, 1950 (post-WWII boom): 310 ppm, 1969 (Moon landing): 325 ppm, 1989 (premiere of Seinfeld): 353 ppm, 2001 (9/11 attacks): 371 ppm, 2020 (Covid-19 shutdown): 414 ppm, May 2025: 430 ppm.  

Countries are nowhere near the global greenhouse gas emissions cut of more than 50% that would be needed to stabilize CO2 levels. What’s even more egregious, there seems to be a retreat from climate alarm everywhere, including Canada – even in the face of the second worst wildfire season in our history and soaring CO2 levels.

But it’s even worse than that. As Linda McQuaig wrote in the Peterborough Examiner editorial on June 13, all we seem to be hearing about is the importance of building new pipelines if we’re to maintain the new détente reached between Ott­awa and provinces like Alberta. “Nobody dares to spoil this sud­den feel­good vibe by even hint­ing at how badly we’re fail­ing on the cli­mate front,” wrote McQuaig.