Wild Sunday: Where are the woolly bears?

How in the world are we to get a hokey way to forecast the winter? There are no woolly bears. This photo is from late last summer.

Last year in early September, I started doing my count of dark, light and mixed woolly worms or woolly bears on back roads.

No, I don’t particularly believe they are a way to forecast how bad the winter will be, but it is one of those things in the wilds I have noticed since I was a kid.

We are well into the first week of October and I have yet to see a single woolly bear. Not one. I still drive the same back roads as much as I did last year, maybe even more this fall.

And I have not spotted a single woolly bear.

Is is the cool summer we had this year? Or the brief spurt of summer that came late? Insecticides?

If you have ideas, let me know below or at oudoordb@sbcglobal.net. I am curious.