Is It Fall?

Lately when I've been out and about in the woods, I've been looking for signs of fall in the foliage. Often, I will see a hint of red or orange in a vine or a tree, but when I get close enough to actually study the color, I see that it's insect damage or leaf pods or some other kind of damage to the plant. So far, I actually haven't seen anything I can say with 100% certainty is color caused by the oncoming fall. The tree in today's photo had me fooled for a while, but the color change on it isn't fall either.

Please don't tell the birds. I've already noticed flocks of robins and starlings heading south. They certainly think it's fall, or at least they think it's time to head south. I see groups of 10-20 robins or 50-100 starlings sweeping over Roundtop, landing briefly in the top of a tree, and then moving off again, as much in synchonicity as a school of fish.

Random Notes

----Dog, Baby Dog and I have been sleeping outside on the deck since the hottest weather broke a week or 10 days ago. The weather has simply been too nice to stay inside, even when inside is a cabin in the woods. I think the cicada symphony is finally starting to diminish a bit. I hope so, as they've been so loud I can't hear much else once they start in.

----Traditionally, I re-do or at least start to re-do my bird feeder on Labor Day each year. I don't feed the local birds during the hottest days of July and/or August. The seed either molds or sprouts before it is eaten. With cooler days and nights, it's time to start feeding again. My first bird of the new feeder years was a female cardinal, followed by a black-capped chickadee and a titmouse.

----I read in the paper earlier this week that when Siberia has a lot of snow cover in October, the northeast U.S. will get hit with cold weather and snow in January. Apparently, the snow cover on the other side of the globe causes high pressure that eventually crosses over the north pole and moves down to our side of the globe, especiallial along the northeast U.S. Who knew?

So, if you want to check out how Siberia (and snow cover elsewhere too) is doing this fall, here's a great site at Rutgers University that shows it http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/.