Light and Leaves At Play In A Bright Autumn Landscape

It has been a gorgeous fall with leaves clinging to the trees far longer than I recall in recent years. The rain has held off, but the trees are slowly releasing their leaf fasteners and hundreds of their leafy members, like golden rain, are falling with the gentlest of breezes throughout the dry days and nights. The sounds of falling leaves . . . flights of leaves . . . piles of leaves . . . walking and kicking up leaves are all quintessentially 'Fall'. I am not one to run out and rake any away, however. 

The wind will have its way and scatter leaves throughout the gardens . . . some warm-yellow Black Cherry leaves will fly high in groups like small flocks of birds. Others will gently float downwards as they twirl similar to a kite descending free of its string and holder. Each tumble is uniquely choreographed by wind. The weight and form of the individually designed leaves, like those of dancers, will also determine their grace and movement in falling. Many will remain where they fall and may be used by some overwintering caterpillars for a cozy, safe place away from the cold and hungry eyes of birds or other predators. 

Light plays within the wide swath of forest and hillside casting its glow amongst the brightly colored canopies of Black, Gray and White Birch, Beech, Rock Maple, Oak, Black Cherry and more stately trees whose bare, crusty trunks and branches are revealed more each day as they shake their mantles free.

Sunsets bring about a particularly magical light show with an interplay of lights and shadows. Looking south easterly, towards Mount Tom, as the sun is setting in the west, slivers of light run along the ridges of hillsides . . . fleeing pursuing shadows.

Ending days pour a honey golden light along Carey and Walnut Hill changing the landscape while creating a spectacle of wonder. Mighty Oaks are only just beginning to wear a sienna or amber hue.

Changes are more noticeable day by day though they are happening minute by minute . . . hour by hour.

Each day the colors move into their full brilliant tints.

An overcast sunset casts a particular chroma within the colorful grouping of birches and the carpet of sumac sprinkled beneath and around them.

A soft fuzzy light remains as the sun sails away. 

Then on the days when there are a few wispy clouds, the lavender shades paint a lovely veil across the sky as the sun disappears. Above is our surroundings just two nights before full moon with a wide angle view.

One night before full moon after a dreamy temperate day.

October's near full 'Hunter's Moon' rising over Walnut Hill just as the sun is sinking in the western sky. If you are observing the moonrise tonight you may notice something a bit strange as there will be a minor eclipse called a penumbral eclipse. It seems the change will be very subtle. 

The changes going on all around the countryside are hardly subtle, however, as life is greatly adjusting to the coming of winter. Crops of apples, winter squash and root veggies such as beets and carrots are being harvested and put away for winter storage. Critters are scurrying around too . . .  storing acorns and other nuts for the long winter months ahead. It is an exciting time of year that many may find depressing. The cold and fading light can bring one down but there is the magic of a fire and more time to read, write and paint await. Autumn is a season of letting go and going under and deeper within. 

As I write about all this beauty and being able to embrace the seasons . . . others are trying to find means to keep warm and survive the coming winter . . . such as refugees in Syria or thousands here at home in horrid circumstances. There is such an injustice . . . inequality in our world and my heart breaks for all those who cannot simply live in peace and who do not have the simple basic needs to be happy and healthy. I never stop being thankful for the beauty that surrounds me . . . nor the freedom I have to enjoy and reap the inspiration it nurtures.

I would like to share a couple of links that I find hopeful. Food Sovereignty Prize and Center For Humans & Nature - Expanding Our Natural & Civic Imagination

There is change happening moment by moment in our fight to make a better world too. The odds are just so stacked against us, but there is hope in expanding minds the world over.

A Bestiary . . . Tales from a Wildlife Garden ~ Featuring Warblers

Time does have a way of falling away from us . . . and so it goes that for nearly two years now I have been writing about the beasts that abide in our wildlife habitat. 'A Bestiary . . . Tales from a Wildlife Garden' is now featuring songbirds with warblers being the focus of my cursor. Warblers are truly delightful birds and come and go with the changing seasons . . . leaving us each late summer and fall only to return every spring . . . their departures and arrivals help us mark time . . . beginnings and endings of growing seasons.

I would be honored if you clicked and scrolled over to Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens to see more images and learn a bit about these brilliantly marked birds. There are twenty-three installments in all but you can pick and choose which you might like to visit. Before the birds I did write about the mammals that roam around and about our twenty-one acres of forest, fields and gardens . . . not lions, tigers and bears but you can awaken bobcat, opossum and bears if you like. 

The labels below reveal the names of the six different warblers framed within this collage . . . perhaps you can match them up. Their little lives here at Flower Hill Farm so enrich my life and I do feel their absence both in the silence of songs and the stillness within the branches of trees and shrubberies. Revisiting our encounters through writing the Bestiary is a joyous way of recalling all of the remarkable wildlife I am so blessed to share this land with. There are more warblers, other songbirds then hummingbirds to write about before I move on to other beasties . . . like butterflies and bees.

October Changing Light and Hues Flights Stirring Fallen Leaves

October drifted into our lives, already alive in colors changing to their true hues, with several flocks in flight stirring up fallen leaves beneath our stately Rock Maple trees. Cedar Waxwings, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, solitary Blue-headed Vireos and Bluebirds flit about calling out in high pitched trills and tweets. A pair of Pileated Woodpeckers dash and tear the sheath of air around the shivering, nearly golden Black Cherry. Everything is in constant motion most all of the time, but just now there is an excitement to the changing season and journeys underway.

The male Bluebird returns to his garden after some weeks of silence and secrecy . . . "Where have you been?" . . .  I silently wonder. I have missed your soft murmuring warbles. The couple furtively, though in plain view, raised two broods here this summer and will claim their chosen homesite to begin again when springs slips over the land. Until then . . . come what may . . .  we will have months together, on this east facing hillside, beneath the mantels of autumn and winter. For now, I must get out and clean their nestbox.

Just at the edge of the Crabapple Orchard a Tree Hydrangea's off-white petals melt into blush pink below a heavily laden Crabapple tree. Flocks of Robins and Cedar Waxwings, along with a Flicker or two, have already been testing the tartness of these tiny apples. 

Ruby-crowned Kinglets are busy gleaning the trees of, even more tiny, insects but never seem tempted by the small apples.

Light and colors are ever in a state of change. Soon the serpentine Black Cherry will be wearing all flaxen tresses and when a large breath of wind moves through her mane . . . golden rain will shatter and fall freely like a flight of butterflies into the pathway of breeze. At this moment . . .  here . . . having lived this time . . . years upon years . . . the images are like parts of a tapestry . . . each year another woven picture within a large hanging called . . .  a seasonal life. A life well seasoned . . . nearing an autumnal age. Yet, I never tire of the excitement of such profound changes within the tides of nature surrounding me.

Plants and shrubs become poetic in exhaling one last flower before inhaling their life fluids deep into their inner trunks and cores. People too may pull in towards their winter souls and move slower through  the pages of months yet to be turned.  These last blooms will nurture our poetic natures and fuel the many pollinators still busy about the gardens and fields.

Light dances throughout the landscape creating colors of cooler and warmer tones. 

The Ruby-crowned Kinglets are delighting in the black aphid population occupying a giant Impatiens glandulifer Royal. The teeny morsels of protein will aid them in their flights south. There is an abundance for all . . . I am not sure what this tiff is all about . . . respecting boundaries I would guess. These might be females or just not very seriously upset, for if they were males and truly pissed, a bright red tuft would suddenly appear atop their heads. We all hide parts of ourselves, don't we.

This Blue-headed Vireo flies about with, and looks very similar to, the much smaller Ruby-crowned Kinglets. Careful observation reveals the true identity, however. As in all life it helps to pay attention to the details and not lose sight of the true nature of things. Not to hint at our country's present state of affairs too lightly.

This morning there is a thick blanket of fog hanging between Flower Hill Farm and Walnut Hill . . . the river below gushes rapidly from the heavy evening rain . . .  wearing and lapping down the memory of what the stones might have been. Earlier, as I was reading, soft chatter of birds and people's voices wafted in between the words and paragraphs . . . guests from Pakistan and Florida . . . a beautiful child wearing a white unicorn stealthily steps about the garden paths with her elegant grandmother who floats in a hammock for the first time in her sixty years. Her kind face, lush dark hair and rich light yellow and pumpkin colored finely woven silk shalwar  (loose trousers) and kameez (long tunic) fill the roped hammock and wild garden with an unknown joy to its being as well.

Each day the hillside fades just a bit more . . . from forest greens to oranges, yellows and reds reminiscent of springs early blooms.

Hummingbirds and Grandmothers Migrating South

Like many birds, and some butterflies, I have headed south for a spell but will be back long before the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds featured below reach their overwintering sites in southern Mexico and northern Panama. Some individual Ruby-throated hummers may decide it is best to spend the winter along the Gulf Coast or the Outer Banks of North Carolina . . . perhaps they are not up to making the longer journey and their survival will depend on how deeply the winter sets in. 

Going back to this past spring at Flower Hill Farm . . . a solitary male Ruby-throated Hummingbird arrives ahead of the female . . . he will tirelessly defend his territory from other males. After he mates, he is fancy-free in the gardens the entire spring and summer, for he does not lift a feather to help his partner in the raising of their young.

As early as mid July or August, the adults depart on their lone journey south . . . weeks before their juvenile hummingbirds take leave of the gardens. Our terrace garden offers a good supply of nectar to fuel their humming motor-motion and there is an abundance of insects, within the gardens and surrounding fields, to build up the needed fat in their tiny bodies . . . so important in enabling them to successfully make the long trip south.

As the daylight hours shrink in September, something alerts the immature hummingbirds to begin their southward trek. Off on an adventure never known, they may repeat it year after year throughout their lives.

One last sip for the trip . . . 

then off they go. 

Safe Travels little Ruby-throated Hummingbirds. We look forward to your return. 

I will be returning to a more normal posting routine very soon. It has been a joy to walk the beaches of North Truro, attend painting workshops and then travel south to hold my precious grandson.

Happy Belated Equinox to you all.