Fall Foliage in our Yard

The fall is in full swing around our yard. The oak and sycamore and tulip poplars are more than halfway through their fall. The red maple is about halfway through. I’m sharing our yard’s fall foliage in photos today….before we do another round of leaf mowing. This is the view from my office window…a pine on the left then a tulip poplar and then the red maple.

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At ground level in the back yard you can see the understory of spice bush (yellow) and the dark tree trunks (the red maple in the foreground); it’s been foggy on most recent mornings. The brush pile catches a few leaves.

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The maple does not seem to have as many pure red leaves this year. There is another maple behind the tulip polar that always turns yellow and I think one of the maple leaves below is from that tree.

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The tulip poplar leaves turn brown very quickly once they are on the ground so it is a challenge to get some with lots of yellow.

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I have taken a lot more sycamore leaf pictures this year. I’m not sure it is it the size variety of the durability of the leaves once they are on the ground. The leaves are large and leathery which make them easier to rake…and really need mowing keep them from killing the grass and clover in our yard.

The tree got a late start and didn’t manage to make very many seed balls because of the cold weather back in May…but there are certainly a lot of leaves to mow from that tree!

The Virginia creeper on some of our trees (oak and sycamore) and the exterior basement wall are changing color too.

The oak leaves that are falling now are brown…with an occasional flash of yellow.

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And then there are invasive ground plants that are changing from green to yellow and red. I would rather not have them….but they are hard to eliminate.

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There are things other than falling leaves that I found when walked around the yard.

A harvestmen spider

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Lady’s thumb (another non-native plant)

Deer trimmed day lily leaves at the base of the oak tree

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The micro clover is doing very well…still very green and spreading

A garden spider with 2 stink bugs in its web

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Spider webs in the azalea bush…maybe funnel spiders?

Overall – a lot of evidence of the season in our yard.

Belmont BioBlitz – Fall 2017 (Part II)

The second day of BioBlitz, the area my group was assigned had some native trees planted as landscaping (one was just beginning to display it fall colors) and long row of white pines. We found mushrooms under the pines; one of the chaperones used the clip on macro lens to photograph underneath the bright yellow mushroom (with the phone in selfie mode).

Of course there were insects and small flowers too….with pinecones to examine while we were enjoying the shade under the pines before heading to the front of the manor house for their picnic lunch.

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The third day of BioBlitz, my group was in the woods. We found several types of fungi growing on rotting wood.

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Millipedes seemed to be everywhere. We talked about taking a video as we watched how their legs moved in ‘waves’ to push them forward.

And then there were lots of small insects we tried to capture in the magnifiers so we could get good pictures!

This was probably the best Belmont Bioblitz I’ve participated in: the weather cooperated (dry and not too hot) and the 5th graders were enthusiastic observers!