Susan Stiles is a woman of mystery.

She has a common name and even Google can’t determine her identity. A search brings many people with the same calling card, but no one who might be the author of a 1973 poem that details an annual nature conundrum. 

Describing a past and current phenomenon, this poem is curious in its cadence and luxurious in its language. It tells of birds singing to their mates during the wrong season for avian love:

“The Autumnal Recrudescence of the Amatory Urge / When the birds are cacaphonic in the trees and on the verge / Of the fields in mid-October when the cold is like a scourge. / It is not delight in winter that makes feathered voices surge, / But autumnal recrudescence of the amatory urge. / When the frost is on the pumpkin and when leaf and branch diverge, / Birds with hormones reawakened sing a paean, not a dirge. / What’s the reason for their warbling? Why on earth this late-year splurge? / The autumnal recrudescence of the amatory urge.”

Though the fall and winter can get lonely, birds are not the only confused and lovelorn creature. Recently, I have heard spring peepers calling out, and even plants seem perplexed. Linsey Lee of Tisbury wrote to share that her lilacs, though leafless, were blooming late last month.

We can blame the unseasonably warm weather and climate change (though it has been occurring since at least 1973 per Stiles verse) and can observe and ponder the unseasonable and inappropriate behavior. I am not sure if autumnal recrudescence is really a thing or just a figment of Stile’s poetic license. However, the amorous activities can be explained.

Consider the birds that we have heard singing recently. The daylight and angle of the sun are similar to those in the spring that get those birds busy and breeding. Fall conditions that mimic the breeding season signal bird hormones to kick in and prepare for mating. This impulse will quickly quiet as the season turns to winter instead of spring.

Another crooner is a spring peeper and you can hear them occasionally call in the fall and winter. In their case, as with the birds, it is the light and sun’s position that encourages them. However, this time of year those frog calls are solitary (rather than a full spring chorus of many). The singleton frogs are heard from the woods instead of the wetlands, where these little amphibians are almost frozen while they are reposing under the leaf litter until spring really comes. Even in this cooled condition, peeper eggs and sperm are ripe and ready so a temporary warm spell almost fools them into hopping into their breeding best.

Untimely, fall and winter blooms by plants that should be dormant occur for a variety of reasons. Stress during the growing season can cause some plants, including lilacs, crabapples, magnolia and forsythia, to flower when they are normally inactive. These growing season stresses include heat, drought, and severe defoliation from disease, pests or heavy pruning. Lindsey’s odd leafless yet blossoming lilacs will likely survive, though there may be fewer flowers on the plant next season.

With the cooling temperatures and much shorter days, the amatory urge might be dampened, though it isn’t impossible to see and hear these spring things through the winter. Susan, wherever she may be, will hopefully still be observing nature’s marvels and likely writing more inspired prose.

Suzan Bellincampi is director of the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary in Edgartown, and author of Martha’s Vineyard: A Field Guide to Island Nature and The Nature of Martha’s Vineyard.