Autumn Is On the Way

Colorful leaf-droppers make for a photogenic fall adventure.

There’s likely no season more longed for across the eastern region than the arrival of fall.  Fall displays many contrasts for it brings both vivid and drab landscapes; reassuring warmth and intimidating coolness, cheery turquoise skies and gloomy, rainy days.

 The background chatter of songbirds goes unnoticed until it’s no longer there.  Then it’s evident that most have gone and with them the summer.  Silent, indeed, are the woodlands with their songsters departed.  Only rarely thereafter is the hush of the forest stirred.  A woodpecker’s busy hammer or a consternation of crows may sometimes break the stillness, but the interruption is characteristically brief.

 September days may have considerable warmth, but October evenings carry a prophetic nuance of winter’s coldness to come.  Early morning sun and shadow conspire to accentuate serene hardwood hollows where fog creeps eerily among the trees suggesting that all is well.  But leaves and branches murmur knowingly on afternoon breezes as hindered sunrays provisionally warm the air.

 Through these wavering days, warmth and coolness romp, tumble and chase one another like playing pups.  Far and wide, for a brief few days, leaf-dropping trees momentarily glare with the season’s garish coat-of-arms in hues of red, yellow and gold.  The absolute high-tide of autumn is then upon the land for little more than the space of an afternoon or two before the colors begin to recede, draining away into the seasonal abyss. Then, just as quickly as it came, it’s passed away.

 If winter is the first season then autumn is the summing up of seasons having come full circle.  It’s the annual period of scaling back, weaning off and wrapping up; the time when peace and quiet no longer stroll hand in hand, for peace soon departs in fall but the quietness abides.

 Still, though fleeting, fall is fun while it lasts and the glory of autumn will soon blanket the mountains beckoning all who would revel in the outdoors to come quickly and celebrate the season.  There’s no better place than Kentucky’s Pine Mountain to enjoy bright, humidity-free days and drink in the pageantry as the fall leaves sing along on key.  Join us, won’t you?

Tags: Naturalist Dean Henson