HG 090216 - Beginnings

Sept 1 in the Southern Hemisphere is the 1st Day of Spring. Not so up here in the Northern half.  For us it is but another notch in the stake that drives Summer closer to Fall and the Year into another notch on the annual tally.  It is a good time of year, all-in-all.  The seasons are in progressive change.  The warmer days of summer begin to give way to the cooler days of Autumn.  Hunting season will commence soon.  A couple of seasons have already sneaked through: Dove, Green-wing Teal, and early Deer season for archery hunters.

Fishing is waning into the fall cool-down. When the big forager fish, Musky, Pike, Walleye and the like go on the hunt to stock up for the cold winter months.  The rest of the fish kingdom do their own fat-build, but it is not to the extent of the large forage fish.  Bass, bluegill, crappie, sunfish and the like all continue to eat with normal veracity, but do have a slight up-tick as the season wanes.  Choice of diet is the greatest change.

A young buck has learned to pick his way, carefully through the woods.
"Gingerly Past the Acorns", an 11" x 9", eLITHOGRAPH by Les Booth
©2016 Les Booth

The bounty of the Summer months changes to the fruit of the harvest for the Fall period. Squirrels and other rodents hoard up nuts and seeds and grasses for the winter months. The beaver stores away branches and bark for the long cold winter.  The muskrat does likewise within its little mud hut lodges or embankment dwellings.  The insects either die off or estivate for the long winter awaiting Springs return.  Amphibians and reptiles all begin the burrowing to wait out the cold winter months.

But everything gives one more shot to enjoying the shortening days of cooler and cooler temps.  Enjoy the last breaths of another later summer life.

The Deer family are just now engaging in the procreation of the species. While many of the smaller mammals have already been through the mating and nurturing and are raising and teaching the current year-class of young.  The birds take wing, for the most part, and hit the airways to reside in the wintering-over destinations. From the extreme southern boundary of the United States, to the reaches of Mexico and into the near-tropics of Central America. A few species even take the route all the way into South America.  While many simply stay put and hunker down for the winter duration

It is the changing of the Season.  This is the easy one.  It's also predecessor to the hard one. Enjoy the cooling days and the abundance of critters out and about. For soon the cold rains of October will be here and the snowflakes of November will be close upon us. 

Enjoy the changes for they are coming ...  Hoosier Ghyllie