Back at my phenology spot, it was immediately clear to that fall had been in full swing in the time that I’d been gone.
I picked a nice secluded spot on a rock to sit for about 15 minutes to make a sketch of my area, shown below.
The most obvious change was the leaves – the maples were fully orange-yellow, and the oaks were almost completely bare. I think I just barely missed the best foliage. Still, it was beautiful. The ground cover had also changed a lot. What was once 70% pine needles was now covered by about 90% fallen leaves. The pines also began to shed their cones.
When I went back to visit the rocky ledge where I’d spotted a small bit of lichen last time, I found that it had spread quite a bit.
Later, I walked down to the lake to go see if there were any ducks around, and spotted four swimming pretty close to the shore – two males and two females. I was also surprised to see that algae had begun to cover the entire shoreline.
