Second or Early Spring?

Recently we have been taking note of a series of odd ecological occurrences hinting that nature has been tricked into an second or early spring.

---

Starting all the way back in October, we first noticed that some of our anise swallowtail (Papilio zelicaon) chrysalises weren't diapausing. However, the weather was still warm and the highly multivoltine species is known to fly quite late in our region, so this occurrence was still in the scope of what was normal.

But, later we started noticing a few chrysalises that already had been diapausing start to eclose for no apparent reason. For example, three chrysalises that had been diapausing for at least a few months decided to come out around 10/13. Then, just recently on 11/10 we had three more males and two females eclose. And on top of that, a male pipevine swallowtail (Battus philenor) from August decided to eclose as well. This is probably the worst time of year to possibly emerge! 

Since this year is an El Niño year, these past few weeks we have been having a lot of rain -- a lot more than what we've had in the last few years due to the drought we are having here in California. In addition, the temperature seems to be a bit above average, too. Either of these factors may be responsible for triggering these early eclosions, eclosions that would have normally ocurred in the spring. 

Then, we also started noticing some other freak occurrences with the plants. . . With the rain, plants in general were growing wildly, annuals were in bloom, and cherry trees were forming blossoms. In our own yard, our apple tree started flowering and our hibiscus tree began regenerating leaves while it was in the middle of dropping its old ones. Both, of course, are deciduous!

And finally, today we almost jumped when we noticed that two of the three two-tailed swallowtail (Papilio multicaudata) chrysalises we had been keeping since August were almost pharate! We hadn't really been checking on these for a while, so this really caught us off guard. If we hadn't noticed the development today we probably would have left them to emerged crippled in the little tub we were keeping them in! 

There is no way that any of these strange occurrences should be happening. But with the longer summer weather we have been seeing in recent years due to what is probably climate change and with the El Niño this year, it isn't too hard to see why this is happening. Either the mild nature of our falls and winter is tricking our wildlife into thinking that we are either having a second spring or next year's spring has come early (and are completely forgetting that they haven't had a winter yet!).  

- Brian