A Year in the Forest

I started out the day by going a different route.  I went down the ravine to harvest a Bear’s Tooth Mushroom I have been eyeing from the ridge top.  While going down the ravine I spotted something I have been looking for for quite a while, a fox den.  We have several foxes and I have always seen them going toward one area.  That is where I spotted the den.  Here is a couple of pictures of it.  One from afar.    And another closer up.    Foxes usually have several dens that they wander between.  This one looks active right now because of the well worn path going to it.

Going further down the ravine I did find the Bear’s Tooth Mushroom.     I also found a ripe paw-paw.  The only one this season.  A paw-paw tastes like a super sweet banana.  The black walnuts are falling with so much rapidity that I almost got hit twice. 

It is getting to be more fall every day.  The aspen trees have lost almost all their leaves.  The other trees are starting to turn and should start loosing their leaves also.  To document the transformation, I plan on taking a picture looking down into the stream bed everyday for a while.  Here is the first.    As you can see most of the leaves are still on the trees, but it shouldn’t be long.  A couple weeks ago I mentioned that I seldom saw birds down in the woods.  I don’t know what has changed, but I have started seeing birds flying around and in the lower branches.  Different seasons bring out different things.  I saw another Box Turtle today.  It was making quite a bit of noise pushing through the leaves.    As usual he was not very happy with being discovered and disturbed.

I was expecting the last rain to make the mushrooms pop out again, but it didn’t.

Once again it is moist and quiet.  I saw a little more animal activity than normal today.  I saw some Juncos (birds) playing in the trees and the Blue Jays were calling and flying around.  The crows were noisy as usual.  The squirrels seemed more active than normal.  I some them both on the ground and in the trees.  There is one particular very tall Black Walnut tree that must have nuts ripe now.  It seems every time I go by there is at least one big crash as a nut falls plus many smaller ones when the squirrels drop nut hulls.  Most of the nuts never reach the ground they are hulled and collected by the squirrels in the tree.  More than once I have passed under a tree and seen nut hulls dropping.  I did see something I have never seen, a Sparrow was sitting on a log eating on the mushrooms there.  And, of course, I saw the deer as usual.

All told we got about an inch of rain, much needed.  The forest is much quieter when it has rained.  I can hear the leaves falling now.  The crows and squirrels, however, made enough noise that it was far from quiet in the woods.

With the rain and cloud cover the temperature last night was almost the same as the high today.  With the rain and warmth I expected many more mushrooms to be up.  All I saw was a new Sulphur Shelf and some new Honey Mushrooms busting out.  There was also some as yet unidentified mycena mushrooms on several dead logs. 

I encountered a deer, it is getting to be a daily occurrence.  As usual the deer snorted at me before it ran off.  I did not get a good look at it because it saw me before I saw it but it sounded like the Buck I have seen earlier.  Its getting scary that I can identify the deer by their snort isn’t it?

I am seeing more places where the ground has been rooted up where some animal was looking for something.  Wonder what it is.

Another dry fal day. The fall colors are starting to show more every day.  It looks like it will be a good year for the leaf colors. 

I encountered one of the many Eastern Box Turtles in our forest today.  This is a rather small one, but like all turtles likes to hide.  Here are some pictures of it trying to hide in the leaves.  Sort of like the proverbial Ostrich it probably thinks it is well hidden.    We often find them in our yard and have to mow around them.  In Indiana the Eastern Box Turtle is protected because of diminishing numbers.  You wouldn’t know it around here.