Changing Colors
Darkness comes too soon and temperatures cool as we settle into our school year routine. In those moments we can sit and notice everything around us, especially colors, is changing in our Northern Hemisphere autumn.
Farmers finish their harvests under weakening sunlight. Sap descends amid the fall fruit of berries, nuts, and cones, the source of abundant seeds for next year’s natural crops. While acorns crunch under walkers’ feet, grocery shoppers’ choices transform from summer lush berries to apples and pears, squash and parsnips.
After harvest, some farmers flood their fields to rot crop stubble. This bounty of leftover grain and water nurtures waterfowl southbound from arctic breeding grounds. Shorebirds and northern breeding songbirds collect where food is plentiful.
Raptors migrate along ridges where warm air rises, aiding the raptors’ ascents and increasing their south bound speed.
Bull elks’ bugling, a long, high-pitched whistle, signals fall rut. Bulls collect and protect harems by antlers, if the threats, such as urinating on vegetation, rolling in mud, and the bellow-whistle-grunts, fail to drive off an intruding bull.
In a nearby stream, the last salmon return to the fresh shallow ripples where they were born. Females battle for position to build nests in the gravel stream and lay eggs; males battle upstream to drop milt on those eggs.
Insects dig down into the damp earth under the fallen leaves, as all over-wintering animals must eat, build dens, and store food. Spiders, after a summer of eating bugs, are at their largest, making enormous fall webs. Here and there, mushrooms ripen. Earthworms and moles become active again, making mounds everywhere.
As the leaves change colors, so do the animals. Birds replace spring breeding plumage with colors less attention attracting. Mammals’ coats take on their winter protective coloration.
Maple seed pods helicopter down into the humus. Poison oak turns bright red.
Branches become bare. Ladybird beetles mass in clumps to hibernate. Waxwings gorge on berries.
The pace of things outside slows, and we turn inward for warmth.
Happy Fall,
Carol
For more information try these links:
• Raptor migration basics
http://www.hawkwatch.org/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=48&Itemid=63
• Photographs of fall mushrooms
http://www.nemf.org/files/lincoff/mushyear.html
• Washington state’s fall salmon runs
http://wdfw.wa.gov/outreach/fishing/salmon.htm
• Managing rice fields for ducks
http://www.kidsarus.org/go4it/Opportunities/Competitions/rfd/default.htm
• Elk overview
http://wdfw.wa.gov/wlm/living/elk.htm
