Migration

Each Fall, Sandhill Cranes gather together to prepare for their long flight south. Baker Sanctuary outside of Battle Creek attracts thousands of the big birds. They'll stay in the area for several weeks before migrating to Florida and Georgia for the winter.

Pretty poison

Poison ivy is common in southwest Michigan and touching it causes a nasty skin rash that can take weeks to heal. The red leaves in the picture are all poison ivy. Definitely "look but don't touch."

Sumac

Sumacs are consistently one of the earliest and most colorful trees of autumn. They don't form dense forests and never grow very tall, so they add bright accents to the landscape.

Cider

It's apple harvest season in Michigan and a friend invited us to a cider making party. The process was pretty simple. We dropped the apples into the grinder and cranked the handle. The ground apples fell into a mesh bag inside the wooden tub of the press. After about 15 minutes of grinding, the tub was full of apple pulp. Then the press was screwed down squeezing all the juice out of the apples. And that's it.

Delicious fresh cider.

Changes

Over the last few days, more color is appearing in the woods. These silver maples near the Kalamazoo River were almost red while most of the trees were still green. The boardwalk is part of the Kalamazoo Nature Center's trail system.

Early color

While the trees are still green, this Virginia Creeper already shows some Fall color. We've had frost on the grass, too, but not a killing frost yet.

Cicadas

Cicadas are emerging from their years underground and are metamorphosing. We found this one on a tree in the yard this morning. They're singing as I write this.


The first photo shows the wrinkled wings as it first leaves its old exoskeleton.


The second photo, taken about an hour later shows its filled-out wings, with the empty shell of its nymph form left behind.


Michigan has 10 species of cicadas and I think this is one of the common Tibicen species, not the infrequent, but more famous, 17-year cicadas.