Saturday, October 5, 2013

A Kaleidoscope of Autumn Color

Our string of cloudless, blue-sky days came to an end on Friday, bringing welcome rain to a thirsty earth and overcast skies that continued on through Saturday.  Those pearl-gray skies cast an even, shadowless light across the autumn landscape, a light in which the colors of changing leaves and grasses and ferns and flowers glowed even more richly than on bright sunlit days.


As I walked a high and curvaceous powerline trail above the Hudson River at Moreau today, I marveled at how, with every turn of the trail and climb of a hill, the magnificent colors were rearranged in ever-changing arrays of green and gold and ruby and amethyst, as radiant and wondrous as the patterns formed by chips of jewel-like glass in a kaleidoscope.






The fruit-bearing trees and shrubs and vines are heavy with fruit this fall, as evidenced by this Hawthorn tree burgeoning with berries, its boughs also weighted with climbing grapes.




I even found a tree with ruby-red apples growing wild!  A deer trail worn through shoulder-high grass led me right to the tree with its windfall bounty littering the grass beneath and filling the air with the fragrance of ripe fruit.




I love the color combination of dark-blue berries and crimson leaves on Virginia Creeper vines.




These Cladonia lichens, too, seemed extra bright, the fruiting bodies glowing a deep, rich red against the gray-green thallus.





Brilliant color everywhere!  Even underfoot!





The high trail along the mountain ridge eventually descended to the river, where I lingered to take in the beauty of the reflections.




Purple-stemmed Asters continue to bless the roadsides with their beauty as well as some rather sleepy Bumble Bees with flowers still heavy with pollen.


6 comments:

  1. How wonderful nature is why do people not appreciate it more.

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  2. Thank you. I grew up in that area. I love looking a your pictures & reading your beautiful descriptions. It reminds me of how much beauty surrounded me as I grew up there.

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  3. Boy, oh boy! Do I miss the Adirondacks this time of year! My SD friends have no idea what "fall color" is. see my blogpost from this morning what was going on here while you were taking those gorgeous photos there! Atlas shrugged!

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  4. Thanks for your comments, Uta, Denise, and Caroline. Yes, this part of the world is easy to love in every season, even buried in deep deep snow. But never with snow as early as out on the plains where Caroline lives. Do click on Caroline's name to get to her photos of the snow this week in South Dakota.

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  5. Splended photographs, and a great read.
    I'm amazed by the fall colors near the ground being so spectacular this year.

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  6. What? Virginia Creeper has berries? How did I not know this? Once again, you remind me to look harder Jackie, and I thank you for it.

    Meanwhile, I can't get overe the bumble bee on the aster flower. The way it's legs are stretched and grasping it, it reminds me so much of a climber all splayed out on a rock face. Fabulous.

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