Nature Notes, October 2024

Bearsville Center Nature Note - TREE MAGIC/THE HUNTERS MOON - October, 2024

So much is happening in October. Most of the harvest is done now and people prepare for winter. All the animals and plants also get ready for the cold, each in their own way. Many birds will have migrated south by now, as have the last of the dragonflies. Autumn is raging around us, which is most obviously visible as our hardwood trees’ leaves turn color and fall, continuing with their amazing “migration in place” as they gradually move their precious sap safely down deep in their roots, away from the threat of frost. No wonder the Lenape name for this time is the Falling Leaf Moon (Chippewa, Mahican and Ojibwe, as well). For the Apache this is “the time when the Corn is taken in”. Many peoples in the northern hemisphere, each in their own way, call this moon some version of the Hunter’s Moon.

Fall

The Fall Equinox is past now. Our Ruby-throated Hummingbirds have departed on their epic 2000-mile journey, some intrepidly crossing the 500-mile-wide Gulf of Mexico in one long sprint. The fourth (and longest-lived, at 6-8 months) generation of Monarchs are on their way to the mountains of Michoacan in Mexico for the winter. It is still a mystery to scientists as to exactly how either of these tiny creatures navigates unfailingly to far off lands neither has ever been to.

I watch the first trees turn color on the peak of Overlook, knowing that this line (the Fall Line) will gradually sweep down the steep slopes into the valley itself, to be followed in a few weeks by the Winter Line, that will do the same, changing the multihued magic of fall to the more somber brown and grey tones of winter (trying to imitate the coats of deer, perhaps?).

It’s almost like the Mother has shed, first her green, “peak-of-life”, leafy cloak, then tried on her fall Cloak Of Many Colors and finally settling for the wan shades of winter (this is the reverse of when the bright-green line of Spring oh so gradually makes it way up the side of the mountain in April).

But I get ahead of myself. Fall is here.

Tree Magicians

Triggered by subtle (and not-so-subtle) changes in light and temperature, an incredible transformation is occurring in our forests because of amazing adaptations over millions of years.

Our hardwoods (Ash, Beech, Birch, Maple and Oak, mainly) have started their unprecedented migration. Yes, migration - a migration-in-place. These trees, which up until recently were engaging in one form of alchemy - taking dirty air from the sky (with carbon in it), bringing it into the earth, removing the carbon from it, then releasing it as pure oxygen back into the sky (basically, scrubbing our dirty air, and creating life-giving oxygen in the process - all powered by sunlight and at no charge to us) - are now consumed with performing other feats of magic: transferring their very essence or lifeblood - their sap - deep down into their roots, safely below the frost-line until summoned once again by the advent of spring; as well as shedding their once-chlorophyll-filled leaves and using them to, first insulate their newly-sap-filled roots, then to make another layer of soil - voila!

Phenomenal, true magic of the common, everyday sort. The hardwoods have done their job for this season - creating clean air, providing shade for untold forest creatures (and people) smaller plants and then - as their spectacular finale - bow down and deposit another future layer of soil. On the surface of it (ha!), one might say that the trees can rest now, having seemingly finished their work for the year, but I’m not sure that the forest ever rests.

In addition to the growing evidence that trees help each other when leafed out, warning each other of impending threats, they also have symbiotic relationships with different mycchorizal fungi that inhabit their roots and which help the trees share certain enzymes - from tree-to-tree - underground. I’m certain that this activity must continue - maybe it even increases - in the winter. Picture the bare branches blowing leaf free in the wild winter winds, etching stark shadows on the sparkling snow, while down deep the sap is safely stored.

The entire forest is connected through those vast roots, communicating its needs and exchanging nutrients amongst various members. I’ve dreamed with the forest and have had glimpses of what it is like to be The Great Tree-Tribe, a vast, inter connected, multi-species, green and brown being that is literally the very essence of the Land, perhaps the greatest Steward of the Earth, with roots running deep and branches reaching high. Perhaps this is our ideal model for us to return to responsible stewardship of the earth, like indigenous peoples. Now, the forest is preparing to hunker down into itself for the coming cold.

At the Bearsville Center our Virginia Creeper is finally starting to fade and the dried husks of Beebalm in our Pollinator Pathway Meadow nod in the fall wind.

Thank you all. Please have a Safe Fall

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