Seasons

Autumn Opportunities

            At this time of autumn, leaves tumble through sunshine like feathers, flashing brilliant stained glass colors. Do you use one of those computer applications that transforms digital pictures? Some programs have a "desaturate" command. When applied to a photograph, "desaturate" changes every hue to shades of gray. That's what happens to New England between Columbus Day and Thanksgiving.

All Dressed Up

A Hooded Merganser visiting the Sudbury River, off Water Row in Sudbury. Photo by Greg Dysart
            It's gone. Finally, the ice that covered our ponds has melted. Without this frozen ceiling, small fish, insect larvae, crayfish, snails, and seeds become a buffet for some of the handsomest creatures on the planet—migratory ducks. These large, strikingly-marked birds are relatively easy to see in early spring if you know where to look.

Land is Life

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There are two advantages to walking in the woods at this time of year. First, most insects you run into are kinds you like to see, such as dragonflies and butterflies. Few of the ambience-spoilers, mosquitoes and deer flies, make it past Labor Day. Secondly, these are the weeks when mushrooms look their best.

Fowl Season

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We have reached that time of year when a certain bird represents the comforts of snug home, loving family, and means sufficient to ward off hunger for another winter. Not so long ago, turkeys in this vicinity were domestic, dead, and de-feathered, but nowadays wild turkeys appear on lawns and roadsides, very much alive and fully dressed in their handsome plumage.

Musing about Evergreen Ferns

After deciduous trees have bared their limbs, certain outdoorsy individuals enter the woods in pursuit of white-tailed deer. Searching for their quarry, what do they see? Wet gray days have washed the color from autumn leaves, but scattered clumps of hardy ferns glow with lively, eye-catching green. The hunters’ wandering gaze finds those pretty evergreen ferns that brave the frost.

In the Woods: Feast or Famine

Some autumns our streets and trails roll with acorns, but not this season. Oak trees produce more of their jauntily-capped nuts some years than others; this year they’ve made very few.