Fall phenology
Go to phenology of: Winter Spring Summer Special
Events
Here's a very basic sampling of the kinds of natural events you can
observe as you visit the Lakeshore Nature Preserve in the fall. Please
use these suggestions as a starting place for investigations of your
own. Once you've started experiencing the world through the eyes of a
phenologist, you'll be amazed at the things you suddenly see that you've
somehow never noticed before!
| Watch for inky cap mushrooms (genus
Coprinus) appearing in massive blooms in late summer and early fall.
They tend to grow at the base of trees and appear in the same locations
year after year. There's one cluster that regularly shows up beneath
the information kiosk at the southwestern entrance of the Memorial
Union! |
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| Among the most stunning fall colors each
year, arriving earlier than most other species, are the brilliant
reds of the sumacs. They're among the first signs you'll see each
year that summer is waning and winter is on its way. |
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| There's an old saying that
the width of the brown stripe in the middle of a woolly bear caterpillar
predicts the severity of the winter. There's no real basis for this
proverb, but the appearance of this caterpillar is certainly an important
phenological harbinger of the fall. |
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| If you look closely, you
may find places in the woods where you can see that squirrels and
other animals have been eating their meals as they work to bulk up
for the cold months ahead, when food will be much scarcer. |
|
Few things are more beautiful
in autumn than the changing colors of the trees.
When you're given
the gift of a warm autumn day in early October, don't squander.
Walking the Lakeshore Path on such a day is among the best things
you could possibly do with your time…and it'll be another year
before you can see such sights. |
|
| Watch for the unusual fungi called puff
balls, which appear in the fall. |
|
| Watch for the “V's” of
migrating birds high in the sky as a sign that the warm months of
summer are finally disappearing and winter is on its way.
Here
a large group of sandhill cranes heads south—you can tell
they're cranes by the way their legs drag out behind them as they
fly. |
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Photo credits:
All photos: Glenda Denniston
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