One Hot Summer

Jessica Rizza writes about our hot summer this year in today's post, and how this affects the animals and plants at Fenner. Come out to Fenner to see for yourself!

It has been one hot summer this year; it’s the hottest year in U.S. history (so far) to be exact! There are many ways that we all deal with the heat. Some people spend their time at beaches and pools cooling off in the water, while others choose to stay indoors in the air conditioning. We, as humans, know how to beat the heat, but what about all the wildlife here at Fenner? The native plants and animals have had to devise their own plans to deal with this hot summer, just like we have.

For example, to deal with hot temperatures, deer will find a low shady area during the day to bed down in. There, it is cooler and there are no direct rays from the sun! A shaded area with a small pond or stream is preferred even more. If you want to spot some deer in the summer here at Fenner, go hiking out on the trails and keep an eye out for shaded moist places.

American toads and green frogs adopt the same strategy. To see frogs and toads in the pond behind the Visitor Center on a hot summer day, you might have to get a little dirtier than one would think. To stay cool, frogs and toads bask in the pond under fallen logs, overhanging trees, or dead branches. An area like this is one of their favorite places to keep cool. 

The native flora, however, isn’t so lucky. With the low precipitation that we’ve had here in Lansing there is only so much a plant can do to conserve its available water. A plant can’t get up and move to a shaded moist area like animals can, thus, a lot of plants around here have suffered losses due to the extreme dry heat we’ve had (especially the open grassy areas).

 
The moral of the story is to try to enjoy the heat and being outside because we’ll have a foot of snow again before we know it!