Autumn reflections

I had planned on posting this a few days ago, but during some recent outings, the birds took priority, especially due to the presence of lingering shorebirds. So I will take the opportunity in this post, to highlight some of the reasons autumn is one of my favourite times of year.

Some folks have told me recently that autumn is not very interesting to them. The forests have lost their greenery and flowers are long gone. Reptiles and amphibians are quickly disappearing, going into their cold weather senescence underground. Birds are fewer and certainly quieter. Even people are not out and about as much, making the trails quiet.

In one sense, these are the exact reasons I look forward to autumn (aside from the fact that October is the month Marie and I were married 43 years ago :-).

Instead of the constant change of wildflowers, various shades of the green growth, and the natural areas being full of action that is sometimes hard to keep up with in spring and summer, autumn can be a time of reflection. We all need quieter times, not the continued busyness that dominates our lives. Certainly the colours change quickly from green to shades of gold, yellow or red before turning brown and then disappearing altogether. And then the colours are even more muted, with varying shades of gray dominating until the white stuff appears.

I had been up to the Sydenham River Nature Reserve not that long ago. It is a relatively recent acquisition by Ontario Nature and is located on the border of Lambton and Middlesex counties. It is a deciduous forest in a largely agricultural landscape, with both the Sydenham River and an unnamed creek going through it. I didn't get to a lot of it, as the boundaries are not well marked, and it is surrounded by private property with numerous No Trespassing/No Hunting signs, so I didn't venture too far this time.  The stream in the following photos is just of the unnamed creek, not the Sydenham.

There are some nice specimens of Common Hackberry here, certainly a Carolinian species that is not all that common even in the Carolinian Forest Zone of Ontario.

Closer to home, I have gone hiking at Rondeau on several occasions. The lake has been riled up from time to time, providing some good photographic moments along the lakeshore. There have also been some serious erosion problems, but at least at the park's south point, there aren't any human habitations under threat.

On occasion, the lake can be quite placid.

The grasses dominating the sand dunes have turned a golden brown. Little Bluestem is one of the most common grasses, and their backlit stems show the fluffy seeds.

On one of my hikes, I was on the lookout for evidence of a somewhat rare orchid. Orchids at this time of year, you ask? Well yes, at least in the case of Puttyroot (Aplectrum hyemale). Its leaves are most visible from November to April, if there isn't any snow on the ground. When it puts up its flowering stem in late May and early June, the single basal leaf has dried up and disappeared. This first image shows a very fresh leaf.

 Here, about a dozen leaves have emerged through some recently fallen maple leaves.

 Only a small percentage of plants will flower in a given year, typically around 10%. Here is a dried up stem with a few capsules.

 One one of my hikes, I came across an unusual sight. The green plant is Maidenhair Fern, a fairly delicate fern species. Most of them by the time of year I took this (Nov 7)  are quite brown and dried up. I guess due to the southern location in the park, and the lake effect which minimized any killing frost, this cluster was still green. It looked quite out of the ordinary to be so green, but with a bit of fresh snow on it.

Due to the temperature of the lake being warmer than the more quickly declining inland temperatures, this 'lake effect', results in the leaves being slower to change from green to gold to brown to gone. Even the south end of the park is delayed compared to the north end. Regardless, the changes throughout the park are fairly rapid in just a few weeks time. This next series of photos were taken along Bennett Avenue.

October 23

October 27

November 7

November 14!

For what it is worth, winter isn't officially here for another 5 weeks!