More Fall Colour

 By the third week of October, the Sugar Maple leaves began their serious transformation, the colour spreading widely through the trees.  There are bright branches against the sky, bright patches of red leaves, and bright individual leaves, especially the ones silhouetted against the sky.

When I'm outside I can look up and see the canopies against the blue sky.

Looking out the small kitchen window I capture a patch of the trees in the bright evening sun.

But when I look at the entire view out back, my eyes are drawn to individual leaves at the bottome of these trees.

I really enjoy being able to pick out individual leaves in their bright colours.  What's your favourite?  I do think I'm catching up, but I'm not there yet so I'm going to try to keep on posting daily until then,.

Migrating Salmon

 Thanksgiving weekend we joined our son and daughter-in-law at our favourite restaurant, the Harrison Park Inn in Owen Sound. It sits at the heart of Harrison Park itself, with the Sydenham River flowing not 200 yards away and is totally accessible.  Let me just point out that this restaurant has turkey dinners on the menu all year round.  It made a great Thanksgiving dinner!

Standing on the bridge (well I was actually sitting), we could look down and watch the salmon as they struggled upstream.  I can't tell you which species these are without having one in my hands, but there are four possibilities.

Salmon were re-introduced in the late 1950s and thereafter, initially to control the exploding population of Alewives, which they successfully did.  Chinook, Coho, Pink and Atlantic Salmon were all stocked, and have done well, though not all populations are sustainable yet.

There are four salmon in this photo, but they're not really clear in the fast current.

This is the Sydenham River where we saw the salmon, here looking downstream where the water is a little calmer and the salmon pool.

The view upstream shows a river tumbling over shallower rocks., but we saw no salmon on that side of the bridge.

Another cluster of four salmon.

Every year we enjoy visiting Harrison Park the see this miracle of nature.

Fall Colours Start to Spread

 By mid-October the red and orange colours were spreading fast in our own back yard.  With our own three fairly large Sugar Maples we're getting lots of those orange and red colours.  The different fall colours that characterize different species of trees intrigue me, but the brightest red trees I saw were right here in our own back yard.

The brightest leaves seemed to be right in front of our kitchen window.

But outside looking up one of the Sugar Maples I could see it was changing colour quickly.

I kept trying to catch photos of the best coloured leaves.

Meanwhile the canopy of that one Sugar Maple was turning red quickly.

Beyond our back yard I could see one of the two big old sugar Maples in the distance starting to turn red,

Sadly, the other big old Sugar Maple appears to have died.  All its leaves are gone, and I fear that it will come down next year.  Lots more coloured leaves to come, but first we need to go and see the salmon migrating up the Sydenham River in Owen Sound.

It's Hallowe'en!

There are lots more pictures of leaves changing colour, especially right here in our own back yard.  However, it's Hallowe'en!  Ghosts and goblins, trick or treaters; we're ready with our candy to avoid the tricks, even though we probably won't see many candy beggars at the door on our street.

In the meantime, I'm struck with how the culture of Hallowe'en is changing.  Not only are costumes getting more expensive, but displays outside homes are getting (in my mind), quite excessive!

Not only was there a huge and scary ghost outside this home, there was also a skeleton rising up from the ground.

Presumably arising from this coffin lying on the front lawn.

There was also a family of grinning pumpkins, behind a low skeletal fence.

Put it together and you've got all this, with the addition of the purple monster on the left.  I like the ghost family the best!

Not to be outdone, the immediate neighbours have created a quite scary entrance that trick or treaters will have to conquer in order to get their treats.

The Arrival of Fall

The arrival of fall is one of the grand changes that occurs over the seasons here.  Fall seems to arrive more suddenly and more completely, when the leaves finally fall, than does spring.  And of course it's colourful, at least if you live in an area with Sugar Maple forests.  Over the next few posts I'm going to share the transformation that fall brings.

When we returned from our grand expedition up to Tobermory there was not much sign of fall colour.  The leaves outside our window were largely still green.

Only a few leaves had turned orange or red.

Across the golf course an individual tree always turns red first.

But the leaves on our own Sugar Maples were turning colour quickly.  When I went out on the deck and looked up one tree's canopy was largely colourful, though the Norway Maple on the left remains green, even today.,

By mid-October the colour was much more obvious, a little late compared to the dates I remember, and a little subdued this year, but fall had arrived.

My Furry Gnome Cousins

 I'm xontinuing my effort to catch up, and will try to post daily until I do (though I have commitments on Wednesday and Thursday which may interfere).  First a simple post to remind you of my cousin Furry Gnomes.  They showed up a few weeks back but now they've been moved to a more auspicious stage.  Thought you'd be interested.  

Here they are, sitting on the front porch nw, bookended by a few miniature pumpkins.

Just so you have the context, they're now part of a bigger front porch collection.  Did you notice all three of them?

Dorcas Bay - Pictures from the Past

 As I've said, I have visited Dorcas, or what Parks Canada is calling Singing Sands, numerous times over the past.  Once we brought university students up here for a week long field course.  So I have a few pictures from the past; pretend you're a botanist and see if you're fascinated by these plants!.  

'Singing Sands' by the way refers to the squeaking sound the sand makes when you walk across it.  This is due to the uniform size of the quartz grains and only occurs a few places in the world.

This map was posted in the years when Parks Canada had taken over management, but before all the recent changes to access had been made.  You can see the narrow access lane that led in off the sideroad, and behind that the open fen, half covered by map labels.  The sandy shore was very wide at this point, and you can see the forest beyond the access point.

This is Fringed Polygala, found typically under the Jack Pine forest.

Indian Paintbrush is found on the dry sands, but in slightly more open areas.

Thios is a terrible picture of Fringed Gentian, but it's the only one I've got.  This beautiful flower typically grows on the open sandy shore.

In slightly ,more damp areas you can find the Grass of Parnassus, not a grass at all, but a flowering plant.  It looks like little white lanterns across the fen.

And now we come to the fascinating Pitcher Plant, this picture taken in the spring when the leaves (pitchers) were still green.

The flower, which hangs down, is stunning, in real life a brighter red than this.

But it's in the 'pitchers' that the plant gets its reputation, for sharp downward pointing hairs trap insects which drown in the fluids at the bottom, providing nutrients for this carnivorous plant.

There's one more fascinating insectivorous plant in the fen, the Linear-leaved Sundew.  The tiny hairs wrap themselves around visiting insects, whci get dissolved by this unique plant.  This one is tiny!

I hope these photos from past blog posts in 2015 help show the uniqueness of this habitat.