Bits of Color – Lots of Seed
Late Fall or (more accurately) Early Winter
Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).
Fallen Foliage
By mid-October, the maples and birches are barren, but we’re happy to find their fallen foliage brightening the trails. Oak and beech leaves hang on for another few weeks, along with a few lonely birch leaves. Berries last longer, and we enjoy these tiny bits of color even as the snow is falling in December.
Fallen Foliage, October 19, 2015
Last Foliage, November 9, 2020
Photos and text by Carl D. Martland, a founding member of ACT and a long-time resident of Sugar Hill. Quotations from his journals indicate the date of and the situation depicted in each photograph.
Gone to Seed
New England and New York asters could still be seen the roadside in early October, but even these late-blooming wildflowers have gone to seed by the end of the month. Out by the ponds and the wetlands, the seemingly solid heads of the cattails have puffed out into a mass of fluff that slowly dries out and eventually drifts across the pond or blows out over the fields. However, if the light is right, and if you can overlook the lack of color, you can appreciate nature’s beauty and abundance as you walk along the roads and through the fields.
Goldenrod, November 9, 2020
Cattails, November 9, 2020
If you do go for a walk, remember to wear an old shirt or a windbreaker – those lovely seeds don’t care whether the wool in your sweater is still on the sheep. Also, bring a camera, for chickadees, blue jays and woodpeckers can be more easily seen now that the leaves are gone. In November, start looking for the small flocks of redpolls and other winter birds that often show up before Thanksgiving.
November 11, 2018. A flock of redpolls showed up today. They first landed in one of the maples along Pearl Lake Road, then dispersed to snack on the elongated clumps of alder seeds.
Last Sightings
By mid-October, the monarchs have migrated, and a few other butterflies have secured a sheltered spot to spend the winter. Likewise, a few dragonflies will manage to survive the cold by migrating or hibernating. However, most of these colorful, entertaining insects have ended their short lives, leaving numerous eggs or nymphs to carry on in the spring. My latest sighting of a dragonfly was on Halloween in 2019:
October 30-31, 2019, 64 degrees, partly cloudy, the first really nice day with temperature above the fifties in a week or more. A dozen or more cherry-faced meadowhawks along the dam, at our end and near the screen house. Many in tandem, including one pair laying eggs in the SE corner. Only one mosaic darner. The 31st was even warmer (67 degrees), but cloudy, so I only saw one darner and no meadowhawks. A pileated woodpecker called near the Upper Meadow.
Amphibians are also pretty much resting in their underground dens by the end of October. Pretty much, but not entirely, as I did once see a snake in early November:
November 7, 2018, 54 degrees, partly cloudy, breezy. At 1pm, as I was about to sit down on a large stump in the middle of the woods, I was startled to see a garter snake less than eight feet away. It moved a little, darted its tongue in and out a bit, then basically sat still for ten minutes. I took a photo, which includes a large oak leaf that I later measured and found to be nine inches long. Using this leaf as a ruler, I determined that the snake was 30-33 inches long. Maybe it was excited by the warmth of the first sunny day in a week or so. Just like me!
Fall’s ending is no more predictable than its beginning. The presence or absence of snow isn’t a reliable indicator of the end of Fall. At the start of our first winter in Sugar Hill, it snowed on November 8th and we didn’t see the ground again until the end of April. That was a very long winter! In some years, it gets cold before we get much snow, and once there was almost no snow until late in December. The day that the pond ices over therefore provides a more reliable indication that fall is over, because this only happens after a sustained period of freezing temperatures. And once it gets cold in northern New Hampshire, it really stays cold!
December 10, 2017. After three nights with temperatures dropping into the mid-twenties, the pond is almost completely covered by snow and ice.
Yes, it is Winter
Yes, it is winter. The pond is iced over, snow covers the ground, and the days are cold. We see coyote tracks crossing the deer tracks and the networks of hare tracks. We see woodpeckers joining the winter songbirds at the feeder. We no longer expect to see much color in the woods, so we are satisfied to see a few green ferns peeking out of the snow or an unusual clump of fungi on a dying birch tree.
December 12, 2020 — A downy woodpecker at the feeder.
December 12, 2017 — A snow-capped hat rack?
The days are short and the nights are long. Soon it will be the holidays, time for the annual bird count, and time to enjoy all twelve days of Christmas. Do the birds and the other animals also celebrate at this time of year? Do they have some kind of internal mechanism that alerts them to the lengthening daylight at the end of December? Do they frolic to the music of an avian hymn? Who knows, but when I took this picture of a grouse sitting amid some tangled vines on the day after Christmas, it sure seemed it was playing the role of a “partridge in a pear tree.”
December 26, 2018 — A partridge in a pear tree on the first day of Christmas? Almost!
