Fall sights

One morning I lingered outside work among flocking birds. Red-winged blackbirds clucked, American robins chuckled, and blue jays voiced their boastful calls of “Jay jay!” All three species are not stereotypical migrants, in that some of the population linger in our area all winter. Most of the blue jays stay. The robins that stay will remain restless as they search for high concentrations of the berries that are their main winter food source.

Berries abound. Nearby trees and invasive shrubs have grown up in old fields. Red honeysuckle berries dot the brushy areas. Taller buckthorns arch over parts of the path, their branches encrusted with black berries. Back home I’ve been noticing maple-leafed viburnum with their black berries and the beaten-down but not yet broken pokeweeds thick with clusters of dark purple fruit.

It’s the time of year I can see that I’ve moved to a different stand in the forest by looking down. At the end of the driveway there are the remains of an old homestead and aspen have grown up in what may have been land cleared by its owner. At the first bend in our driveway, deeply lobed oak leaves replace the rounded aspen leaves, oak being more-shade tolerant, where the forest was once logged but probably not completely cleared.

This past week the leaves have been a study in variation, genetic and microclimatic. All the trees have been performing complicated equations involving day-length, temperature, and water loss and coming up with different results. Some beech trees still resemble striped frozen treats from my childhood – an inner halo of green shades into yellow and an outer layer of orange. Many of the more exposed trees stand bare, especially after this last bout of windy weather. The flush of witch hazel blooms seem showier with this more subdued background.

On a recent sunny day, my mother-in-law’s walls were flush with ladybugs. They have descended on our houses, looking for winter shelter. The pets treat them like little toys, although Ivy has trouble with them because she can’t aim for them and have her nose close enough to sniff them at the same time. Sometimes I wonder if our heated homes, far more numerous and widespread than the longhouses of just a few hundred years ago, provide winter habitat for insects which were previously excluded from our region. Of course many insects already wintered in crevices or underground where the temperature was more moderated.

This is the last we’ll see of some creatures for a few months. Red dragonflies were still patrolling the boardwalks near work last week. There was even a pair joined abdomen to head whose eggs will presumably overwinter. Chipmunks dart about the woods, taunting our dogs with their chirps. It might be nice not to be jerked about when a chipmunk notices me walking Bear and vice versa, but the novelty will wear off long before they rouse from hibernation.