July is the red-white-and-blue month, the month that we celebrate freedom and independence — as we did this week.
But to us nature watchers, July also is the high noon of the year, a turning point. Since summer’s first day on June 21, the days have been growing shorter and already we’re leaning toward autumn.
I use July 4 as a rule of thumb for when ruby-throated hummingbirds start returning to my feeders. Their nesting season has all but wrapped up; now they must quickly fatten up to provide fuel for their arduous trip back to winter grounds in Mexico and Central America.
July also is when other Georgia birds are being drawn southward for the winter. For instance, the Louisiana water thrush, a species of warbler, will start heading out in a week or two, making it one of Georgia’s earliest departing songbirds.
By mid-July, swallow-tailed and Mississippi kites, purple martins and tree swallows will begin gathering in flocks to migrate south.
Also southbound this month will be several species of sandpipers, red knots, dunlins, yellowlegs, plovers, dowitchers and other shorebirds, which will be appearing on inland and coastal mudflats and barrier beaches as they migrate through Georgia to winter grounds as far as South America.
White-tailed bucks start showing their new sets of velvet-covered antlers this month, which is also the best time for observing does with their fawns. Eastern gray squirrels give birth to their second litters of the year in July. For black bears, it is prime breeding season.
On coastal barrier island beaches, July is peak time for loggerhead sea turtle nesting. Baby alligators hatch out in the Okefenokee and other South Georgia swamps.
You also might say that July is a time of independence for many wild creatures. Young herons, egrets and ibis, now fully fledged, are leaving their rookeries. Baby raccoons, foxes, armadillos and bobcats leave their mothers.
IN THE SKY: The moon will be full next weekend — the "ripe corn" moon, as the Cherokee peoples called this month's full moon, said David Dundee, Tellus Science Museum astronomer. Mercury is low in the east just before dawn. Venus rises out of the east about an hour before sunrise. Mars is in the west at sunset and will appear near the moon Saturday night. Saturn is in the west around dusk and sets in the west around midnight; it will appear near the moon on Monday night. Jupiter is not visible this month.
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