Animals
Summer is the season when the large biting greenhead flies abound in such numbers that they can be heard buzzing and bumping through the grass long before they are visible.
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It is the spawning time for the salt marsh minnows and the breeding season for the crabs. You can watch the dance of the fiddlers for hours. The cumbersome large fiddle sported by the males, which is useless for eating and awkward for locomotion suddenly becomes useful. With it the male attracts the female and defends his territory.
As the summer wears on, the baby crabs have drifted with the tides, eaten or been eaten.
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Those that survived return to the marsh as tiny crabs to replace the adults that have fallen victim to rails, herons, and other crab eaters.
Late summer and autumn rain combine with the high tides to wet the highest areas of the marsh more frequently than they did in the summer. During the alternating wilting and drying, the salt marsh mosquito, becomes more abundant than at any other time of the year.
Plants and Birds
In late summer the grasses slow their growth of leaves and begin to elongate the stalk that will raise the flowers and seeds up into the air.
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The baby birds are now grown and are chasing their own insects or catching their own crabs.