It’s an annual tsunami of new life, of youth and renewal of local fauna depleted by the harsh winter season, full of hope and uncertainty for the future.

This past week saw spotted fawns following does rather than hunkering down, miniature cottontail rabbits grazing on the lawn, fox cubs roaming the roadsides, mottled turkey poults clustered around the alert hen. The eastern phoebes that nest on my mom’s quilt shop already have fledged their first batch of chicks. The Canada goslings on Six Mile Lake are still downy but already well grown, the mallard ducklings developing feathers.

Some inevitably will fall, be consumed or otherwise not manage to navigate the hazards of life. One resident mallard hen, capable of producing a clutch of roughly a dozen eggs, has a lone duckling still wisely sticking close to mom. Some songbird species have an estimated mortality rate of 60 to 70% in their first year.

The mallard hens likely will have another nesting attempt this summer. The phoebes may nest twice as well — especially considering the quick exit of the first group — and the robins perhaps three times. Mourning doves are especially prolific, with as many as six broods per breeding season in some parts of their range. The higher the odds of survival, the more it pays to crank out as many offspring as possible.

A monarch caterpillar feeds on a milkweed leaf.

But for birds such as sandhill cranes, bald eagles, common loons, the window to reproduce can be narrow and unforgiving. Those birds may be able to produce new eggs if the first clutch is lost, but if hatched chicks don’t make it, the adults will have to wait until next year to try again.

Same with deer and their predators — coyotes, bear, bobcat, wolves. If the young of the year are lost, there’s no chance to quickly gestate new ones.

Mammals try to better their odds by having multiples. Does after their first breeding year will have twin fawns, triplets or, rarely, quadruplets. The canine species can adjust the number they whelp to take advantage of years when prey is abundant, or scale back in leaner times.

For those young animals that do manage to navigate the challenges and endure that first year, the next goal will be to get old enough and strong enough to reproduce, having proven themselves worthy to contribute to the population.

Their chances of doing that will vary greatly. Given the number of predators they face, white-tailed deer in the wild have an average lifespan of about two to three years, according to the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology’s Animal Diversity Web site, although this factors in the many fawns that don’t make it beyond the first summer. But even among the veterans, few live past 10 years, the ADW states. So most does will start bearing fawns by age 2.

Red fox can begin breeding at 10 months old and have an average lifespan of three to seven years, according to the ADW. Wolves are longer-lived at an average of five to 10 years but also only allow the alpha male and female in a pack to produce pups, so its population will grow more slowly than its coyote cousins that raise young in solitary pairs.

The smaller prey species, not surprisingly, cram much more breeding into their likely short time on earth. Cottontail rabbits live on average only three years but females reach sexual maturity at about three months of age and may have three to five litters a year. White-footed mice are able to breed when only 44 days old and may have two to four litters a year but are lucky if they reach a second birthday.

Birds, in contrast, can be surprisingly long-lived even in the wild. Canada geese have an average lifespan of 10 to 24 years and will begin pairing for nesting in their third year. Sandhill cranes can survive into their 20s, though they also can take longer to reach breeding age, not maturing until as late as age 7.

Even the mallards should have five to 10 years, on average, and can live into their 20s even in the wild; one banded in Arkansas was at least 27 years old when shot in Arkansas in 2008, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

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On the insect side, the first monarch caterpillars are starting to appear in the region on the growing milkweed. These are the offspring of the monarchs that flew north this spring, though likely not the ones that left Mexico. Instead, those overwintering butterflies will have reproduced in southern states, meaning the ones that reached the Upper Peninsula may be about three generations removed from the ones that migrated to Mexico last fall.

It will take these caterpillars about a month to go from egg to adult, shedding skin about five times as they grow before they pupate, according to the U.S. Forest Service. The pupa stage will last only days before the adult emerges.

They, in turn, will produce other generations through the summer until the final round of adults in the fall puts reproduction on pause to head south. While most monarch butterflies live on average only two to five weeks, the butterflies that migrate south will, if they reach Mexico, survive up to nine months, considered a long life for an insect.

Betsy Bloom can be reached at 906-774-2772, ext. 240, or bbloom@ironmountaindailynews.com.