Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Equinox at Bernheim Forest

Although Fall has been sneaking up on us for several weeks, the equinox makes it official now. Bernheim Forest has their ColorFest on Oct. 17, and once again, my volunteer jobs all have great opportunities on the same date so I will have to choose carefully which I can join.
My friend, Tavia Cathcart, is collaborating on a book about Bernheim and says they have few pictures of birds. Well, I can certainly help with that! I sent her about 40-50 of my National Geographic bird photos. If/when they are used in the book, I'll let you all know. I'm pretty excited about it!
This little cutie got perturbed as we followed him around the edge of Lake Nevin. Don't you love his punk hair do? Can there be conjoined trees? This one looks like it had two hearts before it fell in the ice storm.
"Leaves of three, let it be." Both the poison ivy and Virginia Creeper start the parade of fall colors. Yellow is the primary fall color for wildflowers, with Goldenrod dominating the fields and roadsides. It's such a treat to discover a little bug in a photo when you enlarge it. This one is in flight from one sprig to the next on the Goldenrod.
Many different trees have red berries, but this one wins the prize in my book for the most scarlet, vermilion, red I saw. Fire engines should be jealous of this color.
You would expect a flower called Blazing Star to be red or yellow, right? How about this lavender shade instead. The Monarchs love it.
Cypress trees by Lake Nevin join in the color contest as their leaves/needles turn a rusty umber shade before the Garden Pavilion. I need to attend an art class to learn more color names!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, yes, I bet it is fun to find
a surprise in a photo after you
enlarge it. That is a cute little
bee of some sort; but, did you
notice the Soldier Beetle, also
called the Pennsylvania Leatherwing, in the lower right
sitting on the goldenrod?
Hap in New Hope (MN)

Unknown said...

Very beautiful place, I'm going with my girlfriend some time in the future.