It Begins after Labor Day
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).”
When Does Fall Begin?
Back in 2021, I began my September PPP by asking what might seem to be a simple question: “when does fall begin in the North Country?” I wondered if some natural event would signal the start of fall, just as the first woodcock or robin is considered a harbinger of spring. I therefore considered possible signs that those lazy, crazy, hazy days of summer had turned into the crisp, colorful days of fall. Perhaps, I suggested, it’s when the first leaves turn red on the big maples on Post Road. No, I decided, because that can happen as early as the end of July. Perhaps it’s when the nights turn cold enough for two blankets and flannel pajamas? No, because that had happened a couple of weeks earlier. Perhaps it’s when the first apples ripen? No, because that year I had already made two jars of apple sauce with early ripening apples from the Upper Meadow. After these and similar musings, I gave up trying to find a harbinger for the end of summer and the beginning of fall. Instead, I declared that in the North Country, fall begins the day after Labor Day.
It is quite likely that I made up the entire introduction to that essay to cover up the real reason for my conclusion. I grew up in Rhode Island, and school always began the day after Labor Day. We kids required no esoteric explanation to define the change of seasons: summer began the day after school let out in June, and fall began when we had to go back again the day after Labor Day. The seasons were better aligned with the school calendar in Rhode Island than in most other parts of the country, so my belief that fall begins when school starts would not make much sense if you strayed a couple of hundred miles north or south of the Ocean State (something we seldom did, because, you know, that would be travelling out-of-state!).
I also have a personal reason to have a special fondness for Labor Day. My grandfather, without understanding the implications of his actions, chose to be born on Labor Day 125 years ago. My parents, in honor of my grandfather, began their married life on Labor Day 51 years later. I began my life as a freshman at MIT on registration day, which was the Tuesday after Labor Day in 1964. Labor Day has long signaled “new beginnings” for me and my family.
What You Might See over Labor Day Weekend
Labor Day is one of the busiest weekends for people from away coming to the North Country. It’s the last weekend of the summer, it’s a great time to hike in the White Mountains, the air is clear and crisp, it’s a three-day weekend, and it’s a great time for a family reunion. So, if you or your guests are wondering what you might see over Labor Day Weekend, this essay includes photographs and journal entries from in the first week of September. Here is a typical entry from early September.
September 1, 2016, 75 degrees, partly cloudy, beautiful, 130. A half dozen pairs of meadowhawks were laying eggs, bouncing up from and down to the surface of the pond near Rock Island, our name for the rocks sticking out into the pond at the end of what we call “The Point”. While writing this note, one of these pairs landed on my knee! Later, Doug called to say that there was a bear in the bottom of the field, but it was gone by the time that I went over.
Keep your eyes open, and you too may see dragonflies laying eggs or a family of bears foraging at the edge of a meadow. I was too late that day to see the bears, but I knew that Doug would alert me when they returned for another photo op. The photo below is not my best, but it does document that a family of bears can be seen grazing in an open field in the first week of September.
September 2, 2022. Doug called, urging us to come see mother bear and two cubs that were grazing in the usual spot at the bottom of the field.
Tourists unfamiliar with the habits and habitats of bears won’t know where and when to look for them. However, anyone who drives along North Country’s byways at this time of the year is apt to see a lone male or a female and her cubs crossing the road or lolling at the roadside.
September 6, 2014, 85 degrees. After dinner, we went to Bishop’s for Ice Cream. On the way home, I said “I bet we’ll see an animal tonight.” We did. A very healthy, very large bear was in Pearl Lake Road when we started up the hill.
Seeing a bear cross the road is an example of an accidental observation, namely one that required no planning, just the luck to be in the right place at the right time. I have had many such observations while puttering around the yard, picking berries, or cutting firewood. In early September, young birds are likely to be enjoying their first flights and exploring places where their parents told them not to go:
September 2, 2012. A pileated woodpecker was in the maple tree above where I was weeding in the driveway. I’d heard its cry, but didn’t believe a pileated would be right here in the yard in broad daylight. I was very pleasantly surprised when, with a tremendous rush of wings, it landed just a short distance away.
While I happened by chance to see this young pileated, other less friendly observers may well be on the lookout for juveniles who have pushed too soon to get away from their parents.
September 2, 2017, 5pm. I photographed a kestrel perched at the top of a tall pine in the Lower Meadow, its delightful colors bright against the clear blue sky. From this perch, it had a clear view of the pond, the dam, and the surrounding meadows. Maybe it would be happy snagging a large dragonfly or two, but I believe he’s looking for something more filling. This would not be a good time for a young bird to try to stray very far from Mom and Dad.
While it was exciting for us to see this kestrel so close to our yard, it probably didn’t enjoy anything but the view. Labor Day Weekend comes in the middle of a few weeks when it’s a bad time for bird-catching or bird-watching, because most of the nesting birds have left and the migratory birds are eking out a few more days further north. With fewer birds around, this is an excellent time to look for butterflies.
September 3, 2019, 1145, 64 degrees. At 4pm, it was mostly sunny and absolutely calm, great conditions that attracted the most butterflies that I’ve seen this year and perhaps the most that I’ve seen in our 22 years in Sugar Hill:
At least four monarchs on asters at the far end of the dam, two or three at our end, and four or more on Joe Pye Hill.
A viceroy.
A red-spotted purple and a white admiral, who joined one of the monarchs on Joe Pye Hill.
A great-spangled fritillary, that chased a monarch at the end of the dam.
Common ringlets and sulphurs all along the dam.
September 3, 2019. A viceroy mimics the colors of the larger monarch, which is poisonous to predators. The viceroy can be distinguished from a monarch, because it has a single rather than a double row of white spots in the borders of its wings, and it has a clear dark band across the middle of its hind wings.
Of course, at some point we will see what everyone knows to expect to see in both early spring and the beginning of fall.
September 4, 2005 68 degrees, partly sunny. At 930 am, a flock of 25 geese flew high overhead.
The Canada Geese that raised a family in our pond this year have not been seen since mid-August, and the geese and ducks in Coffin Pond have also departed. Insects and amphibians pretty much have the ponds to themselves for next couple of weeks. Turtles, as usual, like to bask in the sun, just as they have been doing since the first warm days in May or June. As near as I can tell, they don’t celebrate Labor Day at all. For frogs, however, Labor Day is a milestone, for this is about the time that many tadpoles finally lose their tail and become frogs. Leopard frogs and pickerel frogs start showing up in the trails and open spots right next to the pond. As I walk along, they will leap back into the water, waiting to reclaim their dry spots at the edge of the pond after I am gone. Green frog and bullfrog tadpoles overwinter in the pond, and they take a year before being able to take up spots along the shoreline. By early September, there may be dozens of them sitting still in the sunlight in sunlit bits of rocky beach.
September 5, 2020, sunny, breezy, wonderful at 1030. Out by the Point, there were eight small green frogs in ten feet of shoreline in front of my chair and extending to Rock Island.
September 5, 2020. Two of the eight small green frogs enjoying the sunshine out by the Point.
However, we are not the only ones who know that this is a good time to look for young, naïve, unwary frogs. Bitterns and Great Blue Herons have much more than a naturalist’s interest in these critters. Bitterns lurk in the cattails, standing still with their beak pointing skyward, invisible to anyone passing by. In early September, when I walk out along the dam, I go very slowly and look carefully, but this is what always happens:
September 6, 2017, rain, then cloudy, 70 degrees, 2pm. As I approached the far end of the pond, I surprised a bittern that then surprised me by rising up out of a small clump of reeds. Flapping its wings to offer a beautiful display of blacks and browns, it flew just a short distance and disappeared into the midst of deeper reeds. I waited at various spots, including the Point and the frog bench, but he stayed hidden.
September 7, 2024, 74 degrees, partly cloudy, breeze, 230, terrific! I saw two bats over the pond yesterday at dusk. Today, a bittern standing to the right of our dock did not fly up as I approached slowly and stood at the left of the dock. I didn’t see the bittern, and it didn’t see me. Only when I stepped forward to the edge of the pond did the bird fly off to the opposite end of the pond.
Great Blue Herons don’t bother to hide like a bittern, either because they are too big to hide or too big to worry about predators. They walk slowly along the shoreline, step by step, intensely alert, looking for an unsuspecting frog. Suddenly, they shoot their neck out and down and, if successful, come up with a snack.
August 31, 2020, 73 degrees, partly cloudy, calm, beautiful, 1400-1630. A heron at the far end of the pond ignored me as walked to the Point. I sat down at the Point and looked for frogs, while the heron stood by the drain doing the same thing. I saw six small and one large green frog and a small pickerel frog, but didn’t notice the heron catching anything.
September 6, 2020. A great blue heron stood quietly at the edge of the pond, waiting for a young frog to hop into range.
Late summer is also the best time to see bats flying around the pond. If you go out to a pond at dusk at this time of year, you may well see a couple of them, and this observation gives you a hint as to what attracts them:
August 17, 2015, 8:10pm. I went out to the pond as the sun set in the hopes of seeing more than one bat. Soon one appeared, making its erratic, chaotic flight over and around the pond for about ten minutes. Then a second joined in. And five minutes later, a third dropped by. I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes, but managed to stay a bit longer as dusk deepened – and then a fourth bat appeared. I retreated from the insects for a few minutes, then returned at 8:25 to find that there were still four bats busily eating whatever was eating me.
Looking for bats doesn’t always result in being harassed by a plague of mosquitos, and sometimes it results in an unexpected observation:
September 4, 2015. Two bats doing their aerobatics over the pond; in the background, deep blue sky tinged with pink. While looking in the pond for reflections of a third bat, I was surprised to see the much larger reflection of a great blue heron! I looked up to see it flying away, low over our end of the pond.
Bears, bitterns, bats, and herons spend Labor Day Weekend looking for the food that is plentiful in late summer. For butterflies and dragonflies, however, this is a romantic time of the year:
September 8, 2018, 240pm, 62 degrees, high clouds, windy. A black-tipped darner and a green darner were laying eggs in the low reeds by the end of the dam. The green darner stayed in one spot for five minutes, making a great whishing noise by flapping her wings against the reeds when an inquisitive mosaic darner flew too close. I didn’t see any male green darners, so she was on her own to discourage these intruders.
September 8, 2023, 85 degrees, HHH (but breezy at least), 220-300. A pair of sulphurs circled from the ground up and out of sight, at least 30 feet above the dam. Then I saw another one on the grass at the far end of the dam, which soon began buzzing a pair that ignored him and just flew away, still united, to a lupine leaf twenty feet down the slope, where the pair remained nearly motionless for more than two minutes.
September 8, 2023. A pair of Pink-Edged Sulphurs at the far end of the dam. The male is in the front, facing to the left, so we can see the silver cell outlined in pink on the underside of its rear wing. The female is in the back, facing to the right, so we can see the dark markings on its upper wing. Both have prominent pink edges.
It Begins After Labor Day
So much begins after Labor Day. The apples ripen, and the bears eat them up. Asters and goldenrods create brilliant colors along the roadside and in the fields, while bits of red and yellow appear in the maples and birches. The warblers, sparrows, geese and so many other birds begin their journey to warmer climes. Deer and turkeys worry, or should worry, about the beginning of the hunting season.
For me, a new life also begins after Labor Day, just it always has. One of my earliest memories is when I was just three years old, standing solemnly by the fence at our backyard, looking mournfully at Jean, my big sister, leaving home for her first day of school. For twenty years thereafter, I knew that school began for me after Labor Day, which perhaps diminished the pleasant memories of the holiday weekend. Throughout my professional career in university research, Labor Day marked the beginning of a new school year and the arrival of new graduate students.
Now, even though I have been retired for nearly twenty years, Labor Day still marks a new beginning. Summer for retirees is longer than, but not necessarily that much different from the vacations that we used to take. Thirty years ago, we could cram as much into a three-week vacation as we now have energy to undertake in a couple of summer months. Only after Labor Day is it clear that we were not just having a lengthy vacation.
When everyone else goes back to school or to work, we appreciate that we don’t have to. I don’t have to go back to my office, I don’t have to start teaching another class, I don’t have to get up early, and I don’t have to spend any time commuting through heavy traffic. The day after Labor Day, my calendar is empty. I can do whatever I choose to do.
Retirement – it all begins again the day after Labor Day.
Soon it will be time to pick the apples.
September 14, 2022. The first batch of apples from the wild tree in the Lower Meadow. Should I begin with apple pie or applesauce?
Photos and text by Carl D. Martland, founding member of ACT, long-time resident of Sugar Hill, and author of Sugar Hill Days: What’s Happening in the Fields, Wetlands, and Forests of a Small New Hampshire Town on the Western Edge of the White Mountain. Quotations from his book and his journals indicate the dates of and the situations depicted in the photos.
