Summer past its peak?

Could it be?  Is it possible that the worst of summer is already over?  It’s too soon to say so definitively, but the signs are trending positively.

Yesterday was the usual hazy, hot and humid summer day that topped out at 90 degrees.  At dusk, I walked the dogs, though not very far.  Returning to the cabin, I stood and watched a small bat cavort through the trees, gobbling mosquitos overhead in the one opening in the forest canopy created by my cabin.  It was a small bat, though all bats look small when they are at treetop level.  And even the so-called big bats are less than 5” in length and only about a foot from one outstretched wing to the next. That said, my guess as to the species of this bat is the Little Brown Bat, Pennsylvania’s most common bat.  They are just over 3” in length and about 8-10 inches with wings spread.  I like watching bats—anything that feeds on mosquitos so voraciously is okay with me.  And despite the fears of many, I think they are cute little things.

A fierce thunderstorm swooped through in the middle of the night, wakening everyone and keeping everyone awake for a solid hour with brilliant bursts of lightning and sharp cracks of thunder.  Today, the humidity is gone, though it is still hot enough for me, if much more comfortable than yesterday.  Even better, the forecast for the next 10 days shows no more 90 degree temperatures, with more than a few days struggling to reach 80.  Northwest winds tomorrow and Thursday will even bring a small slug of raptor migrants down from the far north.  Fall is beginning to approach, and summer is starting to feel as though it has reached its peak and is now beginning a slow slide to cooler temperatures.  That’s never too soon for me.

Ch-, Ch-, Changes

The hours of daylight seem to me to be diminishing pretty fast right now. Not only do I need my headlamp when I start out walking the dogs, I am still using it when our morning walks are over. Now, I can find only the barest hint of dawn in the east when our forays are done.

The chickens no longer wake me; crowing is later every morning. That is good news. Occasionally, in summer Doodle would crow starting around 4:30 a.m. It doesn’t hurt my feelings that my old rooster now doesn’t wake until around 6 a.m.

The lessened hours of daylight do interfere with my walks now. Most importantly, I can’t see as much, which translates into having less to write about. My headlamp only brightens enough for walking, not enough for inspecting every plant and rock. I also find myself staying on ground where I know the footing is pretty even. The headlamp isn’t good for illuminating little bumps and holes that I can easily see in daylight. It’s better if I just avoid areas with rougher footing until the weekend when I can walk in daylight again.  It goes without saying that even ground is less interesting than the rougher land, but a twisted knee is even worse.

Sometimes I hear an owl. Usually it’s one of the great horned owls calling to its mate. It’s too dark to see even the early-rising crows. The forest birds aren’t awake until I’m out feeding the chickens. One thing I have noticed is now that breeding season is over, the local residents are vocal again. Even the noisy chickadees turn quiet when they are nesting. No longer. They are busily scolding me and the chickens and the cats sitting in windows. They probably scold caterpillars, too. Summer is a long time for a chickadee to be silent, and they are making up for lost time.

Fall arrives!

Fall arrived here on Sunday morning, September 7, 2014.

Of course, I know that’s not the official start of fall.

On Saturday evening, the air was still muggy, a situation even worse than humid. Worse, than muggy, the air was cloying. I’ll bet fish could have breathed that air.
 

But when I woke up on Sunday morning, it was cool and clear, that kind of crystalline clarity that comes in September and heralds a new season. In the space of a mere 8 hours, the season changed.  I had no easing of summer into fall this year.  No sirree, it happened fast!

It’s true that Roundtop still looks like summer, but that will soon change. I spent a few hours watching fall migration on Sunday, though that was slow. The weather change likely happened too late in the day to incite many songbirds to move south overnight. And the daytime migrants probably didn’t start with the crack of dawn, likely taking time to have a bit of breakfast before heading south.
 

Even so, I saw a few migrating birds—tree swallows mostly. The other birds I saw—Red-tailed hawks and turkey vultures—could easily have been local birds, despite their altitude in a clear blue sky. More likely, this evening I’ll notice something new, something only migration could bring near my cabin. It’s an exciting time of year, and I never tire of it

Dull fall colors

Franklin Township, York County PA

No getting around it; this fall just isn’t producing much in the way of pretty fall colors. Some individual trees are showing half-decent color, but the overall appearance of the mountains is pretty drab. A fair number of  trees have lost their leaves entirely, so the chances that the remaining leaves will suddenly brighten up seems highly unlikely.

The deer that were living next to my cabin and growing tamer by the minute seem to have moved on.  I don’t know why, though two possibilities jump to mind.  One is that they may have exhausted the supply of acorns and hickory nuts in that patch of woods.  The other is that now that leaves are falling and the forest understory is opening up, perhaps they are skittish of being seen in the more open forest.  Perhaps all this time they thought they were hidden when they were perfectly in view, and now they know they aren’t hidden.  Whatever the answer, they were not around this weekend.

Despite the wind and chill temperatures over the past week, this October will be warmer than average.  Those 10 days of very warm weather at the beginning of the month were the cause of that.  With the more seasonal weather of the past week, October 2013 will still be warmer than average, but it will fall into the once-every-five-years or so level of warmer instead of the warmest ever.

At the cabin, the heat is now on, though I still keep the indoors fairly cool.  58-60 is a good comfort range for me.  I wear a sweater and sometimes a beret or a knit cap.  As long as my nose and fingers aren’t cold, I’m comfortable.

Early signs of fall

Tulip poplar leaf

On this early day of fall, the season already feels well-started.  Here on Roundtop, the deer are wearing their brown winter coats. The fawns have lost or are losing their spots.  The summer songbirds are gone, and the local residents are noisy again now that the breeding season is over. The mornings are crisp but the afternoons are warm enough to roll up my long sleeves as I putter around the cabin.

The forest's summer understory is withering and and disappearing onto the ground. it is not yet cold enough, not the days short enough, for the big trees of the forest to turn color, but the drying of leaves on the smaller trees continues.  At the moment, the trees most affect are the smaller tulip poplars, a softwood.  The big tulip poplars are as green as ever. August and September so far have been cooler than normal here and also drier, if not by an enormous amount.  I have occasionally before this year seen early yellowing on leaves.  Typically, that has occurred when August is both hot and dry, so I am surprised to see it happen during a cool and dry season. To my eye and memory, the level of this year's drying leaves is extreme.  At the moment, precipitation is not quite 4.5 inches below normal, a goodly, if not extreme amount.

I am thinking that the lessened amount of snowfall last winter and the drier than average spring did more damage to the smaller trees than could be made up by a rainy June. perhaps these smaller and less robust trees were made even less robust by the wet weather of 2012.  And while 2012 was only about 4 inches above normal in my area, 2011 was a record-setting wet year, nearly double the normal precipitation.  So now in a dry year, these trees aren't perhaps as hardy as they might have been if rainfall had been "normal" over their growing lives.

It is well known that a warm, dry summer followed by a rainy autumn produces the best fall colors. We've had the dry part, and the summer was warm, though not hot. Now, if only the rainy autumn would appear, perhaps this would be a good year for fall colors. That is something to look forward to and hope for.

Waiting for the piper

Summer is now two-thirds over, though most in the U.S. probably equate the end of summer with the Labor Day holiday and kids’ return to school.  I tend to view the Labor Day holiday as the end of summer, too, mostly in the hope that it really does mean summer is over.  I am not a fan of hot weather, which means I don’t much care for summer, my least favorite season of the year.  So I am always glad to see it go.  It’s just that it doesn’t always go when I’d like it to.

August 2013 is going to be one of the cooler ones on record in my area, despite the upcoming days in the upper 80’s.  So as Augusts go, I am not finding much to complain about this year.  I just know, however, that I will pay for this nice August weather.  And that will probably mean payment will come due in September or even October.  In central Pennsylvania, one warm or cool month is very often followed by one that’s just the opposite.  So I am already anticipating a fall month with warm to hot weather.  And that I am not looking forward to.

I should, of course, leave well enough alone and simply enjoy a cool August, but I can’t. It’s like having this little storm cloud over my head that constantly drones, “you will pay, you will pay.” Part of it is simply that I love fall and fall weather, so I don’t want it to be a moment shorter than it should be.  Partly, it’s because it’s not much fun sitting on the rocks of a hawkwatch when it’s sweltering.  All things considered, I’d rather have a normal, hot  August if it meant fall weather would begin in early September and last until early December.

Of course, perhaps this year I’ll “hit the lottery” and have a cool August followed by normal fall weather. That would be truly novel.

My photo today was actually taken yesterday. This morning was totally fogged in. I’ve noticed over the years that August sunrises and December sunsets tend to be the most impressive of the year here in my neck of the woods. I have no idea why.

Looking ahead

It’s not just me who is lamenting the fog that still grips Roundtop and much of the east coast. Yesterday, I was emailed a photo of a lonely hawkwatcher sitting all by himself up on his fog-shrouded perch at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. The only way that man would see any hawks (assuming one was desperate enough to be flying) was if one perched on his head. Another hawk counter from up in Connecticut told me he was holding a “fog watch” this year instead of a hawkwatch. It’s all funny, if not terribly amusing.

The forecast is still promising clearing up for a day or two before rain moves in again. That same forecast is promising some much cooler weather starting on Saturday. I’m already planning to bring the last of the summering houseplants back into the cabin, including my 10-ft tall ficus tree. The whole planned operation got me to thinking about dependent we are on weather forecasts in a way that was impossible just a generation ago.

Before WWII and the advent of radar, I would have little idea that the temperature would drop a good 20 degrees in another day or so. I might have been able to look at the sky and predict rain or another storm, but I never heard anyone report they could predict a 20 degree temperature drop. Back then I probably would have brought my houseplants inside based on a day of the calendar—perhaps Columbus Day. And if I’d relied on that day this year, I’d be at least two days too late for my houseplants. As it is I am scheduling my evening around bringing in the houseplants and getting them situated for the upcoming winter.

My now year-old kittens will have forgotten about the tree, or if they haven’t, they will remember just how much fun it was to climb up to the second floor of the cabin via the tree instead of the stairs. Of course, they are much larger now, fully grown, and the tree will not support three cats still operating on kitten brains. I am not looking forward to dealing with a tree toppled in my living room until they learn this lesson. But learn they must, and deal with it I must. I hope they learn quickly.

Summer's end

Pinetown Rd., Warrington Township, York County, Pennsylvania

The swallows are gone. So it’s official now, summer is over. I’m not sure exactly when the swallows left. I think it was a couple of days ago. Some days when I looked for them and wouldn’t see them, I thought they had left only to find them again on the next night on their usual wire. But I haven’t seen them at all for a couple of days now, so this time I think they are well and truly gone.

The swifts are migrating but still around. Typically I see them, as well as nighthawks, up until around the middle of September. Usually those September birds are the ones I see from a hawkwatch ,and they are the northern birds heading south, not the local birds. The ones that summer here will have already been gone by then. But for the moment at least, I’m pretty sure the swifts that skitter over the pond are the local birds, and last night I still heard the pewee call. Neither will be on the mountain for much longer this year.

Last night I walked out to one of the snowmaking ponds and watched the mountain settle into darkness. For once the weather was pleasant and clear. I even found a good rock for my perch. I brought my binoculars but only used them once or twice. Mostly, I was close enough to see or hear all the birds around me. Nothing much happens most of the time, which is fine with me. It relaxes me to watch daylight disappear, to listen to the sounds of day turn into the quieter hours of night. Sometimes I see a bird I haven’t seen in a while. Sometimes I don’t. It’s the watching that matters, not what I see.

Soon I won’t have daylight enough to bird in the evenings. Even last night, with a nearly full moon overhead in the early evening, it was fully dark well before 8:30 pm. When those days arrive I will rely on my hearing to enjoy my evenings on the mountain, though I will still try to sit outside for a few minutes on most days, even in winter. The only time weather keeps me inside is during heavy rain, extreme heat (sometimes), thunderstorms and the odd tornado. Sometimes evening activities keep me from sitting out, so I don’t like to let bad weather stop me when I have an unscheduled evening.

Sitting outside in the evenings here on the mountain is something I value pretty highly. Over the years I’ve learned a lot about the natural world and its local inhabitants just by sitting among them and watching. I guess I feel that if I don’t take advantage of what I can learn from the mountain, what’s the point of being here? Where else can I get such a free education? It would be a shame to ignore what’s just outside my door.

Waves of color

Red Maple

Pennsylvania has a lot of different species of trees. I’ve heard numbers ranging from 108-134 different species, plus another 40 or so introduced species. That is one reason why the autumn leaf colors last so long here. More northern areas tend to have fewer species, and while their color change is very dramatic, the time to see that color is usually very short. Each tree species has its own time for the color change; some change early, others late. For me, that’s both good news and bad news.

The good news is that I get to see the gorgeous for colors for a long time. I will have color on the trees from now through early November. The bad news is that the forest here is rarely, if ever, all gorgeous at the same time. Often, there’s color mixed in with greenery, except at the end of the season when color is mixed in with bare branches.

The first wave of color change is going on now. Normally, the first wave is a yellow shade, except for aptly named red maple, which joins in too. Hickory and sassafras are in this first group.

Next is the orange wave. In this area that means the white oaks, and since there’s a lot of those here on Roundtop, that is a particularly pretty time of the fall. That probably won’t happen here for another two weeks or so.

When I’m lucky, the orange second wave and the final wave of red can come pretty close together. The last of the maples and the red oak are in this last group. This group changes the last week of October and into the early days of November.

Since nothing in nature is ever an absolute, these are general principles only. Certain species, like sugar maples, can show different colors on the same tree at the same time. Other species can show different colors from year to year, depending on soil and weather.

This year I’m hopeful the floods of September will yield an extra bounty of brilliant colors during October. I plan to take as many photos as possible.

Sassafras and beech

Full moon with spruce

The forest is starting to dry off, at least around the edges, so I was able to explore a bit yesterday. Mushrooms, to no one’s surprise, I’m sure, are popping up everywhere. So far, I haven’t seen any that are unusual or gorgeous. I’ve just seen lots of the standard varieties.

Since it’s been nearly a full week since I was last able to wander around the woods, I saw more leaves turning color than I expected. The driveways and roads were littered with leaves torn off by Hurricane Irene for a few days, but now that they have disappeared I really can’t see that the canopy looks thinner than it did before.

Fall bird migration is already well underway. Raptor counts are picking up with several sites already counting more than 1000 hawks in a day. Counters are also reporting large numbers and variety of songbirds. The summer residents are heading south and will soon be gone.

I am looking forward to the change of seasons. I actually have more sunlight in the winter than in summer, and this year the leaf canopy has been particularly thick and the sunlight lacking. With the drop in leaves will come a view of the sky and the mountains to the west, both of which have been invisible to me for the past few months. Even though the birds are leaving, the open sky and the mountain will give me something beautiful to look at. I'm ready for that.

Finally, sun!

I can't even begin to tell you how glad I was to see the sun when it finally appeared late on Saturday afternoon. Even after the rains from the hurricane abated, the weather didn't clear.  The fog was as thick as a blanket. The humidity was just as bad, and the sky was completely overcast. Even my mold had mold.  I was starting to think nothing was ever going to dry out.  Today, the rivers, especially the Susquehanna, are still running high but are receding, and life is returning to more normal with every foot the river drops.

That first glimpse of sun, just at sunset, was greeted with a mental cheer and a sign of relief from me.  The drying out process after the one-two punch of Hurricanes Irene and Lee (and perhaps even Katia should get a mention) still has a ways to go.  At least the process has begun and no hurricanes are in the forecast. 

Now I am wondering, what will all this rain mean for the fall color change, which is now only about 4 weeks away?  Will it make it later? Prettier?  Longer?  I will have to wait and see. I expect it will have some impact, but just what that might be is still unknown.

In any event, it's not raining today.  No rain is in the forecast, and as soon as the forest dries out just a bit more, I'll be down on a trail, looking to see whatever I can see.