Pop-up Field Trip to the Floating Fen
Wednesday, July 2 at 8AM
Meet at the South Gate Parking Lot at 8:00AM to carpool/caravan or meet us at the Floating Fen
Well, it's official. Jennifer Francois and I have no self-control when it comes to nature nerd opportunities! After lengthy discussions this off-season about our need to prune the programming and eliminate field trips in order to preserve our sanity this season, when Andrew Gaerte from the Western New York Land Conservancy offered to let us tour the newly-acquired Floating Fen at last week's Brown Bag Lecture, we jumped on it! He added that the birding is great and we swooned.
This is unofficial (no sign-ups - we aren't doing official field trips this year!), just meet at the South Lot on Wednesday if you want to go. If you don't have a car, jump in to one of ours.
The weather is looking overcast with a comfortable temperature on Wednesday morning. I would encourage hiking shoes/boots, or rubber boots. You may also want to bring water and bug spray. There are no restrooms at the preserve.
If you're scratching your head about what a fen is exactly, please check out the WNYLC website Floating Fen or read (or reread!) the article Terry Mosher wrote for the November newsletter. Here’s a good definition from a very good book: Annie Proulx’s Fen, Bog, and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis:
"FEN: A fen is a peat-forming wetland that is at least partly fed by waters that have contact with mineral soils, such as rivers and streams flowing in from higher ground. Such minerotrophic water can support reeds and marsh grasses. Fen waters tend to be deep."
If you want to meet us at the Fen, here are the GPS coordinates: (42.3485420, -79.414629). There is not an address to type into Google Maps or your car's map system. Otherwise, meet us at the South Gate Parking Lot and we will make our way there together. It's about a 20 minute drive. We'll stay for about an hour and a half, so home by 11:00-ish.
Yes, this does mean we will miss the Gloves-on Gardening Lessons with Betsy and probably Kelly Carlin and Joely Fisher, but at least the amp speakers will be on the Assembly...no getting back that lost lesson with Betsy. Chautauqua means hard choices!
Leslie Renjilian, Fen Fan
-sundew image from the WNYLC website
Tickets On Sale Now!
Dear Life Members,
I hope you will be able to join us for the Annual Life Member Luncheon on August 2, 2024 in the Athenaeum Hotel Parlor.
Our speaker will be Clara Miller, who has just completed her first week in the newly-created position of Curator at Miller* Cottage. Her tour was full both Tuesday and Thursday and she was fabulous! We are thrilled to have her all to ourselves on August 2.
Clara's talk will be called BTGiants: Our Foremothers (and Fathers)
Our ticket price has increased this year. This was not an easy decision for the BTG Board, but Gentle Reader, I hope you will read on and understand our decision. Firstly, the event has lost money for the last several years. That was not sustainable. Second, this is an event, not simply a lunch. We pay room rental, AV rental, a speaker fee, decorations and printing costs, and of course, the food costs. Please do not think of this as a $75 piece of quiche...in fact, you can't think of it that way because the menu has changed and it's going to be delicious! But it's so much more than a lunch anyway!
We hope you will join us for a wonderful afternoon of fellowship and learning!
-The Membership Committee
Reminder: The Life Member Luncheon is for life members only. Sorry, no guests are invited. There are no physical tickets for the event. Your name will be on a list at the Welcome Table.
*Sounds like a straight-up case of nepotism, right? Clara Miller is the curator of Miller Cottage? Nope. Different Millers.
above: Jack Gulvin, pictured above at the Purple Martin houses, will be giving his Purple Martin Chats each Thursday until Week 4, when the martins head off on their long migrations. He's been caring for the birds and sharing his knowledge for 25 years and these Chats are absolute perfection.
Monday, July 1
Location Smith Wilkes Hall Patio For ages 3 and up. Bring a grown-up and a lunch. Lynette Caplice will lead us.
Location: Shoreline and Wetland Gardens (between Children's Beach and the Pier Building in Lower Miller Park
Tuesday, July 2
Location: Smith Wilkes Hall
CANCELED 4:30PM The Last Bumblebee Screening
Wednesday, July 3
Location: Corner of Massey & Hawthorne.
Join us for a short lesson followed by gardening together. Bring gloves if you have them; we'll provide the tools.
8:00AM Floating Fen field trip - details above
12:30-2:30PM Shipman Garden History & Horticulture Tours
Location: Miller Cottage (24 Miller)
There will be a historical garden tour at 12:30PM and horticulture Q&A at 1:30PM.
Miller Cottage (the cottage interior) is open to the public this year on Tuesdays and Thursdays with tours led by Clara Miller. YAY!! Tickets are free and available at the Visitor's Center. Note: This is a Chautauqua Institution program - not a BTG event. To recap: The Gardens are open to the public on Wednesdays (sponsored by BTG and no ticket required) and the Cottage is open Tuesday and Thursday (free ticket and sponsored by CI).
4:15PM Tree Walk with Jack Gulvin
Location: Smith Wilkes Hall patio
Thursday, July 4
Location: Meet at the corner of Massey & Hawthorne.
Location: Purple Martin Houses just north of the Sports Club
Friday, July 5
9:00AM Nature Walk with Jack Gulvin
Location: Smith Wilkes Hall patio
12:30PM Gardening the Waterfront
Location: Smith Wilkes Hall
Garden Walk led by Jennifer Francois, BTG VP of Programs
BTG Commemorative Plate Updates
Pre-Ordered Plate Pick-up
Pre-ordered plates can be picked up:
Sundays 12:00 - 1:30PM on the patio behind Smith Wilkes Hall
Tuesdays 12:00-1:00PM on the patio behind Smith Wilkes Hall
TOUR DAY: Thursday July 11th 12-5PM on the patio behind Smith Wilkes Hall
Plate Purchase Times & Locations
Additional plates are available! Plates can be purchased for $50 each or $535 a dozen. Supplies are limited.
Sundays 12-1:30PM at the BTG Table in Bestor Plaza during the Chautauqua Activity Fairs
Tuesdays 12-1PM at our Brown Bag Lectures at Smith Wilkes Hall
TOUR DAY: Thursday July 11th 12-5PM at the Hospitality Table in Miller Park
On our website , starting July 1st
House & Garden Tour Tickets
July 11, 2024
House & Garden Tour tickets are still available! Tickets can be purchased (and pre-ordered tickets can be picked-up) at the following times and locations:
Sunday, July 7th from 12-1:30PM at the BTG table in Bestor Plaza during the Chautauqua Activity Fairs
Tuesday, July 2nd and 9th from 12-1:00PM at Smith Wilkes Hall during the BTG Brown Bag Lectures
TOUR DAY: Thursday July 11th from 7:00AM-1:00PM at the BTG Welcome Table located in the Pedestrian Tunnel at the Main Gate
Below: Hand-painted designs at the Fine Cottage. Photo by Angela James
Cicadas
by Dennis McNair, PhD
First of all, cicadas are not locusts. Locusts are migratory grasshoppers that arise, occasionally, in very large numbers and destroy crops, hence the biblical “plague of locusts.”
In North America, the common dog day cicadas or jar flies are exceptionally large, green bugs that superficially resemble huge flies. The winged adult stage emerges annually, in July or August, especially in southern states, and males produce a loud buzz as a mating call. About 100 species of these annual cicadas exist in North America, of about 2000 cicada species that are found worldwide.
To my knowledge, all mated female cicadas lay their eggs beneath the bark of tender branches of trees and woody bushes, causing little permanent harm. When they hatch, their nymphs drop to the ground, burrow, and feed on fluids from tree roots for one or more years, depending on their species and soil temperatures (1-9 years in US species).
Lately, we’ve all heard a great deal about the emergence of two overlapping broods of the several North American regional broods of periodical cicadas, genus Magicicada occurring in North America. (Brood XIX is a 13-year brood and overlaps with Brood XIII of a 17-year brood. This co-emergence only occurs every 221 years.) Adults of a particular brood emerge almost simultaneously in early summer. Biologists estimate that there are 7 species, each with several broods, in the genus Magicicada in North America. The winged, sexually mature adults in a particular brood all emerge synchronously, so billions of adults appeared in the overlap zone this year. They all emerged within a few weeks in June. (The developmental intervals may vary slightly, depending upon soil temperatures, like other cicadas, but nymphs of periodical cicadas typically remain in the soil for 13 years in the southern part of their range and 17 years for northern broods.)
The evolutionary strategy of synchronized emergence is hypothesized to be that predators will be quickly sated, and only a very small proportion of the mating adults will be lost. Since the typical emergences are spaced so far apart, no predators specialize in eating the sexually mature adult stage. Periodical cicadas are hard to study, because adults are only available for research every 13 or 17 years in a particular locale and the subterranean nymphs are obscure. As a result, a lot of our knowledge about them is speculative.
The males of all cicadas, whether the annual (dog day) ones or periodicals, use specialized thoracic structures, called tymbals, to produce species specific calls that attract females for mating. As you can imagine – or might have witnessed – the combined “singing” of vast numbers of males causes an almost deafening din. The bothersome sound and some minor egg-laying damage to branch tips, caused when the females split bark to insert their eggs, are the only untoward consequences of periodical cicada emergences. They don’t sting or bite and cause only insignificant, temporary damage to plants. The nymphs apparently don’t harm tree roots and have few, if any, parasites. In fact, their burrowing might aerate soil and improve conditions for soil inhabitants.
The subterranean nymphs are so widely dispersed in the soil that the application of insecticides is futile, and so much would have to be applied that their use would be prohibitively expensive. Besides, such pesticides are indiscriminate, so beneficial soil inhabitants would be killed in the process. Egg-laying may cause drooping of branch tips, but no permanent harm is attributable to cicadas – even the hordes of adult Magicicada that appear every 13 or 17 years. So, the only remaining human annoyance is the often too loud noise they produce, and it’s best for us to regard that as just a quickly passing phase of love-sick males calling to their potential mates in the only way Nature has allowed. After a 13- or 17-year wait, can we blame them for being a little loud?!
Dennis McNair PhD, BTG Entomologist
Week One In Photos
 | Our first Brown Bag of 2024: Andrew Gaerte of Western NY Land Conservancy (who will lead the Floating Fen tour this Wednesday), Mark Wenzler of the Chautauqua Climate Change Initiative, Leslie Renjilian BTG President, Marisa Riggi, our Brown Bag Speaker, and Jennifer Francois, VP of Program |
Julia and Alexis Koron organize and distribute the Commemorative Plates at their new home in the Smith Wilkes Hall kitchen. Our own Cinderellas, they are sometimes assisted by mice... |  |
 | Gloves-on Gardening Lessons with Betsy Burgeson every Wednesday! Learn from the BEST! |
Past Presidents club: After the lecture on Tuesday, BTG Presidents Angela James, Leslie Renjilian, Margie Buxbaum, and Suzanne Aldrich share a moment. |  |
 | Janine Obee leads the Shipman Garden Tour at Miller Cottage on Wednesdays at 12:30PM |
Jonathan Townsend of Royal Fern Nursery led the Native Plant Sale as well as the Lake Walk on Monday. |  |
Corrections: Well, this feedback from Life Member Fern Jaffe, an expert on native plants, was a real bummer. Apparently the Kousa dogwood (our Cover Girl in last week's newsletter) is now classified as an invasive in New Jersey. Once well-behaved and touted as a good replacement for the anthracnose-beleaguered native Cornus florida, the Kousa is on the naughty list now. Read more here.
Many thanks to Fern for the feedback. We love to hear from our readers.
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