Gardeners, farmers and outdoors enthusiasts are generally eager to take advantage of fruits from summer blooms. So, too, is wildlife.

While some edible morsels are commonly dubbed something other than fruits, most are, because they formed from flowers.

Blueberries are bountiful, particularly in Central and Northern Wisconsin, but blackberries are just beginning to turn away from green.

Hard mast fruit — acorns, hickory nuts, walnuts and hazelnuts — are a mixed bag aside from hazelnuts and isolated trees and regions showing better promise of a productive year.

Even the more berry-like fruits of trees, shrubs and vines are not all special this year. Deer hunters may have noticed meager wild apples in many places. Elderberries and blackberries do appear to be worthy, however.

A lack of consistent availability has brought birds to domestic berries and squirrels to other food sources after finding meager nut development.

Deer are often more vegetative eaters and now are favoring soybean leaves and the early beginning of corn ears and leaves.

Who can miss the most common midsummer flower, corn’s tassels and ears, both of which are thousands of tiny, clustered flowers? This makes corn grains, whether eaten by deer or people at a corn boil, that plant’s fruits.

Timber rattlesnakes, inland from the Mississippi and Wisconsin rivers, are a concern and inquisition of farmers, hikers and gardeners in Grant, Crawford, Sauk, and several other counties. Several snakes in Crawford County were removed from a yard after spending several weeks depopulating chipmunks. Care was taken by a warden and wildlife biologist to displace the snakes in familiar territory after hosing them with cold water was not permanently fruitful.

Deer disease continues to spark some interest. The embers of chronic wasting disease were fanned in Madison when Midwest biologists met to acknowledge working together to learn and find new tactics for fighting CWD.

While criticized by some for not discussing more immediate answers, the hope is that by working together, rather than each state looking for solutions in isolation, small gains can immediately be shared by all.

Hunters and wildlife viewers have a responsibility in this game, too, in being involved in the best management and science practices, which show some hope in managing CWD.

Some still believe, after decade-long hiatus of mostly ignoring CWD, all has not been lost in the white-tailed deer hunting and viewing traditions.

A more colorful picture is prairies and lowlands continuing alive with yellows and purples of goldenrods, various sunflowers, Joe-pie weed and the tail on cattails.

Most antlers have established their point number and antler tips are becoming more point-like, not so rounded.

Walnut trees may not be filled with nuts, but many are showing the beginnings of leaf yellowing, a warning that autumn is approaching.

— Jerry Davis is an Argyle native and a freelance writer who lives in Barneveld. He can be reached at sivadjam@mhtc.net or at 608-924-1112.