The anticipation and excitement of the first warm days of spring finally comes to fruition. The first spring rains; fish spawning runs, bird migrations, and courtship rituals are completed. The month of June marks the end of spring and the beginning of summer. The mild, comfortable spring breezes, which are still occasionally laced with refreshing northerly winds, begin to dissipate. Temperatures climb, as does the humidity. The sun’s life-giving rays accelerate the growth of plants and trees through photosynthesis, a miracle most people take for granted every day. Little do most realize we couldn’t live without the process.

     By late May and June most trees, shrubs, and other foliage are well along in their development. A wide variety of colorful wild flowers have all taken their turns to adorn the woods and fields. The catalpa will bloom with the first hot, humid days. As kids in Milwaukee, my friends and I used to call the long seed pipes, “Indian cigars,” or “Indian pipes.” We would gather them in fall and make believe we were smoking them. In the dark woodlands a plant with the name Indian pipe grows in the rich humus living off dying vegetation. It is ghostly white and lacks chlorophyll, much like a mushroom. Along muddy waterways and marsh edges, arrow leaf shoots are a foot or more in height, and are a lush emerald green in color, while new cattail growths have begun to engulf the brittle, tan stalks of last year.

     With the exception of certain sunfish species, most freshwater fish have completed their spawning activities and, for a brief time, roam the shorelines feeding heavily until warming waters and increased aquatic vegetation growths force them to their deeper summer haunts along drop offs, reefs, or weed bed edges. Soon the weedier shorelines show evidence of a successful spawning season as tiny fry dart about in the shallows.

     Somewhere in an adjacent marsh, a little marsh wren sits atop an old cattail amid new green shoots and sings its scratchy song. Carp splash and boil amid the weeds in the shallows as they spawn. Coots and teal cruise and feed leisurely in the marsh sloughs while a wood duck drake loafs on a log. At the wooded edge of the marsh, a brood of fluffy wood duck ducklings tumble earthward from their tree hole nest some 40 feet up. Bouncing like little balls of cotton, and somehow never getting hurt, they join the hen that leads the downy young quickly to the security of the water.

     The appearance of the young-of-the-year fish, birds, and other wild creatures is probably the most noteworthy event in May and June. After all, it is this increase that will assure the continuation of each kind. Many birds have more than one brood per year, most notably mourning doves which may have six or seven! If a nest is lost due to predation or weather, birds will renest. In fact they will often try again and again until it gets too late in the year. So we will see young-of-the-year even into September in the case of some species. Squirrels have two litters a year and rabbits are known for their prolific breeding abilities. They are in my yard right now eating some of my wife’s flowers and the tops off of my kohlrabi! Sometimes the furry little guy just stares at me as if to say, “when are you gonna plant your beans!”

     Unfortunately, due to loss of habitat and abuse and misuse of the land, some species are diminishing, especially those with very specific habitat requirements. Available habitat is “restocked” naturally each year, but that habitat is dwindling as our living spaces expand. Despite this, the land it is still unbelievably productive. Warming temperatures and almost fully developed foliages now host and supply abundant varieties and numbers of insects for the diets of young, growing birds and mammals. While songbirds, birds of prey have young that are totally helpless and dependent on their parents, certain species of young are precocial. That is, they are able to run about and fend somewhat for themselves as soon as their natal down is dry. These include sandpipers, plovers, snipe, waterfowl, grouse, quail, and turkeys. One day while trout fishing I was returning to my car to retrieve some forgotten tackle when I came upon a grouse and her 10 or 12 chicks. After a brief frenzy of undecidedness and warning clucks, she began her injured wing act as the chicks scattered, hunkered down under scrub oak saplings, tufts of grass, or merely squatted down and remained motionless.. The hen fanned her tail and dragged her wing as if injured and tried to lead me away. I paused briefly to just enjoy the drama I had just witnessed, and then went about my business, allowing the chicks to reunite with the hen that called them excitedly.

     On another occasion, I was pleasantly surprised early one morning when a brood of four black, downy chicks ran across a road that separated two small marshes. At first their identity was a mystery until a hen snipe dashed quickly by them. The tiny young picked up their pace until they were all safe in the tall vegetation on the other side. I witnessed a similar scene on a forest road when a woodcock hen and her brood crossed early one morning. 

     Everywhere on a June morning parent birds are flying back and forth, busily gathering and delivering food to their growing babies, removing fecal sacks to keep them clean, leading them through the woodlands, along marsh sloughs, lakeshores, and across roads. In June, the world of wildlife, the whole outdoor scene is one of great activity. The methodical “business” of reproducing “after their kind” is a top priority for breeding wildlife. It is a time of the young-of-the-year.

©2003 Spike Knuth Al Rights Reserved. Contact Spike Knuth at

Artwork © 2003 Spike Knuth