Fall's A-comin

One day I took a walk in a large area of state forest about an hour from home that I haven’t visited in a decade. The day was smack in the middle of August but there were clear signs of fall coming on. Beneath many of the large red maples lay an abundance of fallen leaves brightly colored in reds and yellows –

Each and every year red maples begin to turn color in mid to late August. Most people think mid-August is still summer, but it’s actually the beginning of fall – chipmunks are storing their winter groceries, bobolinks are on their way to Argentina, woodchucks are fattening up, and the list goes on.

The first of the fall rains have begun and the soil is moist again after weeks of barely any rain. The recent rain has triggered the flush of mushrooms and other fungi fruiting bodies that we see every fall. The mushrooms were small but quite colorful, most beyond my ability to identify. Here’s a sample of the mushrooms I found that day, some certainly are the same species, but all are photogenic nonetheless –

In the next few weeks there will be more and larger and more colorful mushrooms appearing. I’ll be there with camera in hand.