September 3, 2023: A Glimpse of Fall

Friday gave us our first glimpse of fall, one day before the start of meteorological autumn arrived.  It was bright, breezy and cool, with a brisk NW wind blowing away the humidity from early in the week.  As temperatures drop, the forest starts to become more active, as do the lakes.  I saw this white-tailed deer swimming between two islands in the middle of the afternoon on Tuesday.

A deer out for an afternoon dip.

It would swim where the water was deep, and walk along the bottom of the lake where it was shallow.

It climbed up onto one small firm spot,

which it crossed before jumping back into the lake.

Eventually it made its way onto one of the larger islands where it disappeared into the trees in search of fresh browsing spots.

Earlier in the week I met a deer standing in the clearing just past the trailhead of the Hamlin Town Forest.  

This one wasn't fazed at all; it just watched me as I went by and on my way.

No bear encounters this week so I was able to study the beechnuts on the ground.  They are plentiful, and were falling all around me like rain.

A good crop of beechnuts.

Though I do believe they are smaller than usual this year.

These were under a big beech tree, but I could find no signs of bear claws on this trunk.

No claw marks on this big old beech.

No up-close bear encounters, but I did find this nice pile of fresh bear scat one morning:

Very fresh bear scat full of black cherry fruit and seeds.

It was still glistening so it wasn't more than a couple of hours old, though it wasn't still warm.  A few minutes later I walked through a storm of bees hovering around a ground nest that the bear had just recently ripped up to eat the bees and the eggs.  I wasn't far behind it!

The current star of the wildflowers right now are the asters, of several types and colors. 

Yellow and purple centers in Calico Asters.

These were being appreciated by multiple species of insects seeking their pollen and ensuring a good seed crop for next year as well as seeds for the birds that will feed on them in the coming days.

There's nothing new to report on the loon chicks; LuLu and Checkers spend a lot of time watching their parents dive, maybe observing how it's done, but certainly wanting to be first in line when someone brings up a tasty morsel for them.

On this bright blue day it was dad they were haunting for food.

You can see a bit of white on dad's band.

I started seeing signs of trees turning color a couple of weeks of weeks ago but haven't wanted to admit it.  Now that September is here, there's no more denying it.

And Mt. Washington had its first snow of the season.  Fall is coming.