The Subtle Season

November!  It's that time of year here in northeastern New York I call "The Subtle Season." The bright florals of Summer faded long ago, the glorious Technicolor hues of Autumn have dimmed, and the sparkling snows and crystalline ices of Winter have yet to arrive.  But still, much beauty persists for those of us who love the tawny tans, cinnamon browns, old golds and deep russets that color the countryside now.  While I gazed at the landscape pictured here --  high rolling hills beneath a powerline that follows a mountain range along the Hudson River -- I thought of the lovely textures and colors of a fine Scottish tweed. Even the seedpods of Bee Balm in the foreground reminded me of the braided leather buttons on a Harris Tweed Shooting Coat.

Amid the forest-green conifers and russet-leaved oaks that line the clearcut here, this Witch Hazel tree stood out, both for its size and for the brighter yellow of its branches thick with flowers.

The oaks do provide most of what remains of the colorful autumn foliage now, but the grassy, ferny, shrub-studded rocky meadows are lovely in their own right.

I believe this yellow-leaved shrub might be an invasive non-native honeysuckle, so I was not at all disturbed to see it being overwhelmed by the fluffy seed-heads of Virgin's Bower vines.

Pale-yellow, curving seedheads of Foxtail Grass stood high above the other meadow grasses and low-growing plants.

Vast patches of our native lance-leaved, linen-tan Deer Tongue Grass filled areas under the lines.

Where tiny rills dampened their banks, mosses like Common Haircap spread across the ground.  This mossy patch was punctuated by a large prickly rosette of thistle leaves (species unknown).

When this high trail descended toward the river, I followed it down to the banks of the Hudson.  There I stood in awe at the serene beauty of this scene, where still-colorful forested mountains reached all the way to the water's edge, and tiny pine-studded islands dotted the mirror-still surface of the river.

Shuffling through the fallen leaves along the banks, I discovered this pretty pair of acorn caps, each of which appeared to be etched with an image of a pale-gold flower surrounded by a dark brown wreath.

This frond of Long Beech Fern was remarkable for its total lack of color, truly striking against its background of still colorful fallen leaves.

While kneeling to photograph that fern, I thought I detected some movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to notice this hole at the base of a tree.  Nothing there.  But then this little beady-eyed, pink-nosed, white-chinned face suddenly appeared peeking out at me.  The small Deer Mouse quickly disappeared when I pointed my camera in its direction. But the dear little critter promptly re-appeared for just an instant, just long enough to snap this slighty blurry photo.  How cute is this?  I was happy to see that this wee one has a nice sheltered spot to spend the winter. Or so I hope.

A Celebration of Leaves in Every Season!

As I turn the leaf of my calendar from October to November,  many of our deciduous trees have dropped their leaves by now. Although I now look forward to the different kind of nature's beauty that awaits in snow-spangled winter, I do feel a bit sad to say goodbye to this year's leaves. So I spent an hour or two looking through my photo files for my most intriguing shots of leaves, just to keep them with me a bit longer.  Here are some of my favorites, photos of leaves from springtime bud break to winter's absence.

In Early Spring, the copper-colored bud scales of American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) open to release the tender baby leaves within, fluffy with down as soft as a kitten's fur.

The scarlet baby leaves of Red Maple (Acer rubrum) burst forth from their overlapping bud scales atop sceptre-like twigs.

When backlit by a low spring sun, these newly opened Red Maple leaves glowed like stained glass.

Lit by the sun, these translucent baby Red Oak leaves (Quercus rubra) also glowed like stained glass with multicolors of red and gold and green.

These baby oak leaves are probably another species of oak than those in the photo above, appearing less translucent and also much furrier.  But almost all tender baby tree leaves are tinged with red to some extent, due to the presence of anthocyanins, chemicals that carry a red color along with protection from the sun's burning rays.

Note how the presence of anthocyanins have also tinted these baby Bigtooth Aspen leaves (Populus grandidentata), adding an apricot-colored tinge to the fuzzy lime-green leaves.

Even from a distance, that apricot tinge can be seen on these sunlit Bigtooth Aspen trees, a warm color matched by the newly emerging Little Bluestem Grass that surrounds the trunks.

Because Summertime unifies most tree leaves in a nearly uniform green, I have failed to take much notice of them photographically,  although I am always deeply grateful for their cooling shade.  Occasionally, though, one may strike my eye because of remarkable circumstances.  A case in point was this Quaking Aspen leaf (Populus tremuloides) resting on gravel, a recent rain having splashed bits of gravel onto the leaf, where raindrops both large and small encapsulated them to fascinating effect.

I could do an entire post or two or three to include the many different kinds of galls that oak leaves play host to, but I'm limiting myself to just two for the purposes of this post.  The Dryocosmus deciduus galls pictured here, looking like tiny pink jugs with yellow stoppers, are caused by a tiny wasp in the Dryocosmus genus that lays her eggs on the midveins of leaves in the red oak group. Each tiny "jug" shelters a single larva.

This second gall, found usually on leaves of the white oak group, is called the Hedgehog Gall.  It is remarkably fuzzy, with red fuzz covering pebbled yellow spheres, which shelter eggs of the tiny wasp Acraspis erinacei. 

As Autumn arrives, the paths below Quaking Aspen trees (Populus tremuloides) will be littered with yellow leaves, almost every one of which may display green patches caused by the tiny larva of a small moth in the family Nepticulidae that resides within the leaves.  This tiny larva exudes a chemical that preserves the chlorophyll in the otherwise dying leaf, which allows the larva to continue feeding on living leaf tissue until it is ready to pupate. It will then retreat to a tiny brown patch at the base of the leaf to pupate there until it emerges to fly away as a moth in the spring.

Over the more than 30 years I've been paying attention to the leaves of Bigtooth Aspen (Populus grandidentata),  I've noticed that in most autumns (including this year) their leaves turn a uniform golden color.  But now and then we have a year when their leaves turn many different and spectacular colors. While walking a leaf-littered trail two years ago, I gathered together as many different color variations as I could find in just a small area, so I could include them all in a single photo.  So beautiful! I have no idea why some years the Bigtooth Aspen leaves produce such a gorgeous range of colors, and in other years they do not.

The leaves of American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) always turn a gorgeous copper color each fall, and when they fall and carpet the forest floor, they cause the woods around them to glow with a warm light. In this case, each leaf retained a trace of green color, matching the fern's frond that rested among them.

This Red Maple leaf (Acer rubrum) was floating on the quiet waters of the Hudson River.  I was struck with delight by the simple beauty of this gold and scarlet leaf so perfectly at rest on the water, with no background busyness to detract from its elegance. At the time, we were surrounded by masses of trees in their multicolor autumnal splendor, and there's no doubt they were glorious. But like a ruby solitaire, this single leaf epitomized the essence of autumn loveliness!

On another occasion, this Pickerel Frog eluded my efforts to take its photo by leaping onto this floating Red Maple leaf.  Which then provided the perfect foil for the picture-taking!

It almost seems unreal, does it not, the luminous pinky-purple these Maple-leaved Viburnum leaves (Viburnum acerifolium) appear?  No other understory shrub bears autumn leaves of this unusual color, the color in this event made extra-luminous, lit by sunlight veiled by wispy clouds.

The leaves of seedling oaks often contain all the colors of autumn in a single leaf.  A bed of Common Haircap Moss formed a perfect foil for the vibrant beauty of this one.

Talk about vibrant beauty!   The leaves of this small Sassafras tree (Sassafras albidum) glow with the color of fire!

The golden leaves of this American Witch Hazel shrub (Hamamelis virginiana) are rendered doubly beautiful by their rippling reflection.

Autumn draws to a close, and even the Red Oaks (Quercus rubra) start to drop a few of their leaves. I was struck by how lovely this pair looked, speckled with black and white dots and resting so quietly on the water. The river must have recently risen to cover a patch of still-blooming pink-flowered Smartweeds, creating a subtle green and blue background to set off the tawny leaves.

As Winter approaches, I await the first sub-freezing mornings, when sparkling frost crystals outline the leaves that remain on the American Hazelnut shrubs (Corylus americana) and other plants under the open sky.

The remnants of tattered oak leaves form a frame around a cluster of British Soldier lichens (Cladonia cristatella) amid an ice-frosted patch of Juniper Haircap Moss (Polytrichum juniperinum).

As a rising sun begins to melt the frost on this vividly colored seedling White Oak (Quercus alba), the leaves seem to glow from within.

Young American Beeches hold onto their translucent golden leaves all winter, but as snow begins to fall, occasional leaves flutter free to rest on the snow-covered forest floor.

A few minutes later, that same golden American Beech leaf faintly showed through a veil of fresh snow.

Winter's cold deepens and the lakes freeze over, allowing me to freely walk across them.  That's how I happened upon this large oak leaf arrayed within an escutcheon of white opaque ice resting atop the bluer-ice surface.  How unusual!  I figured that the dark leaf, absorbing the heat of the sun during a sunny day, must have melted the ice beneath and around itself, which then refroze overnight, creating this remarkable sight.

This oak leaf left evidence of its presence in the center of the road that will last through every season!

Quick Trips on Busy Days

I don't always have all day to wander the woods to my heart's content.  But lucky for me, if I have but an hour or two to find a nature fix, two nearby state parks offer me very pleasant destinations, as well as easy walking. The Saratoga Spa State Park is right in my own town, and the Moreau Lake State Park is only a short drive north.  I visited both parks this past week, found much to delight me, and still got home in time to take a nap before fixing dinner.  Here are just a few highlights, from both destinations.

Saratoga Spa State Park, the Geyser Creek Trail

Our friends in our Thursday Naturalist group will be walking the Geyser Creek trail later this week, so I joined my friends Sue and Ruth late last week to scope out any points of interest we could share with our friends. 

This woodsy, watery trail follows the rushing creek that passes Spa Park's famous Island Spouter, seen in this photo spurting high up from its mound of mineral accretions, called a "tufa."  The creek is actually misnamed, since this mineral-water spouter is not a geyser at all.  Geysers obtain their energy from a build-up of underground heat, while all the mineral-water springs at Saratoga Spa Park are cold, obtaining their energy from built-up gases.  These gases give most of the spring waters in this park their sparkly carbonation.

Our trail moved past an even more enormous tufa, formed by mineral-rich waters that spill down the shale cliffs that line the path. The lime in these spring waters has also created a rich habitat for many fascinating plants.  Sue and Ruth are here examining some of the unusual mosses that thrive on these cliffs.

Many of the plants we found, such as this Maidenhair Fern, will only grow in just such lime-rich soil.

Another lime-lover is this Spikenard plant, its branches heavy now with abundant clusters of small berries.  I always like to nibble a few of these fruits, which have a rather interesting taste that reminds me of the smell of incense.

Here's one of the mosses that thrive on these banks, a species of "pocket moss" in the Fissedens genus.  The leaves of this  genus are folded in such a way that a pocket is formed in the leaf, hence the term "pocket moss."  I, of course, cannot detect this pocket with my poor eyesight, but Ruth has lent me her loupe on other occasions so that I could see it. The species is often hard to exactly discern for this genus, but I usually can recognize it as one of the Fissidens by the broad little "hands" of its leaves.

The trail ends where this culvert delivers the Geyser Creek to Spa Park, and it's at this point where we climbed a staircase up the cliff to walk back along a paved road.

Before leaving the creekside and climbing the stairs, I turned to look downstream and marvel at how the enormous tufa was shining in the sun.

After climbing the stairs, we approached a small stone structure that encloses Orenda Spring.  The word "Orenda" means a divine force believed by the Iroquois people to be the source of all positive human accomplishment.  Wouldn't it be wonderful if all the peoples of the world could be so transformed by drinking the waters of this spring?  One could only hope! This is one of my favorite springs in the park, and I always drink from its sparkly water for my own refreshment.

As we headed down this road toward our cars, we halted to admire this impressive patch of fungus. At first glance, I thought I was seeing a tree-trunk decorated by Turkey Tail Fungus, a shelf fungus known for its alternating zonal stripes of tan and orange. 

But the undersides of these mushrooms were definitely gilled, not like the smooth white surface consisting of tiny pores that is diagnostic for Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor).   This mushroom was instead Trametes betulina, which is known to closely resemble the Turkey Tail, except for possessing a gilled fertile surface. In fact, the vernacular name for this fungus is Gilled Polypore (an oxymoronic name if there ever was one!). Another odd thing, although the specific name betulina would indicate an association with birch trees, these mushrooms were growing on the felled trunk of an oak!  But this fungus is known to grow on other hardwoods as well as birches.

Aside from an interesting mix of birds flocking a birdfeeder, we saw very little wildlife on this creekside walk.  A fascinating exception was this cluster of Woolly Alder Aphids feeding on an alder twig.

Why would I consider finding a bunch of bugs so fascinating?  Well, these are some truly amazing insects, almost miraculous, from a human point of view.  For all of these little aphids, their bodies covered with an extruded white waxy "fur" to protect themselves from weather and predators, are the wingless female offspring not only of a single winged female aphid but also of each other, clones of the single wingless clone that the winged female first deposited on this alder twig. At the end of their feeding season and before dying and dropping away, these individual females will each produce a WINGED clone of herself, and some of these will be males! (How a female clones a male clone I have yet to comprehend!)  Then all these winged Woolly Alder Aphids will fly off to some Silver Maple trees to find mates and lay eggs on the maple bark. The cycle than begins again next spring.  A few of these small fuzzy bugs were dropping away already, so I'm guessing that this colony was reaching the end of its life.

I hope these cute little critters will still be here when our Thursday Naturalist friends arrive later this  week.

Moreau Lake State Park,  North Shore Path

One of my favorite spots for a brief walk at this park is this trail that that divides Moreau's main lake from its back bay.  While strolling a needle-softened path beneath tall White Pines and Pitch Pines, I can catch glimpses of both bodies of water, the lake often glittering with wavelets catching the sun, and the back bay often quiet enough to mirror the mountains that rise from its shore.

And this time of year, the Black Huckleberry shrubs that grow like a hedge between the tall trees and the lake's sandy shore put on a glorious scarlet show.

Even after most other deciduous trees have faded from autumn splendor,  the shiny leaves of these huckleberry shrubs are just reaching their pinnacle of brilliant red.

I love the contrast between the Pitch Pines' puffy green needle-tufts and the glossy scarlet leaves of the huckleberries. Both species thrive is such sandy, low-nutrient soil.

The Pitch Pine boughs hold cones from as many as three years (or more!) at a time.  While some of the older cones on this tree had opened their scales to shed their seeds some years ago, I believe this is a yearling cone, with scales still tightly closed (and offering a sun-warmed perch for this Ladybug).  The Pitch Pine is well adapted to survive forest fires, sometimes actually requiring fire to cause the cones to drop their seeds.

As I walked along the sandy lakeshore, I was stunned to a halt to enjoy the fire-colored leaves of this small Sassafras tree. Since Sassafras is a tree more habituated to southern climes, we are lucky to have this beautiful species this far north, where they often prefer riverbanks, swamps, lakeshores and other wetlands that temper our winters' frigid temps with humidity.

Dropping to my knees to examine a patch of damp sand, I was delighted to still find some tiny plants of Small-flowered Dwarf Flatsedge before they shrivel from hard frost.  Although this Endangered species is one of our states rarest plants, thousands of them thrive on Moreau's sandy and pebbly shores. (Chances are good, though, that you would never notice them from a standing height!)

I continued along the sunlit shore to a point where I could look back and enjoy this view of the mountains rising beyond the lake.

The shoreline along this stretch is quite pebbled, and the small colored stones that lie beneath the crystal-clear rippling water bore bands of rippling light. This beauty was so mesmerizing, I could have stayed there all day.

But because I had errands yet to run, I turned to leave.  As I hurried toward my car, I envied this couple and their dog, who appeared to have all the time in the world to linger on this beautiful shore.