Hello my friends and welcome to October. What a wonderful month this promises to be with all of the forest displaying its glorious colors. I do love the fall.
October is a month of many changes – the trees change, our gardens change, the birds change and the weather, it changes getting cooler and cooler until the rain, it changes and becomes snow. Yes snow, there I have said it the dreaded “S” word. I hope that we all are ready for what is to come, I have most of my firewood all split and stacked. Another month and it’s time to start unstacking it.
Speaking of fall, the mushrooms are sure out in Mio with Honeys everywhere. Now Honeys is a nickname used to shorten Ringless Honey Mushrooms and is okay to use when others know what you mean. But with mushrooms please be careful, I have been seeing people saying that the Honeys are Chicken Of The Woods which is wrong. In this case no one is likely to be hurt as both are edible, but confuse them with Jack O Lanterns and it’s a different story.
The birds of summer have flown south and have left behind not only memories but a vacuum that fortunately is being filled with wintertime friends. It is sad to see the swallows and hummingbirds leave but today a tufted titmouse has shown his perky self at the birds’ buffet on my porch.
This late summer I was privileged to have between six and 12 night hawks swooping above each evening giving an awesome aerial display. It is so nice to see that there are still a few around and not all have been poisoned by our relentless spraying.
Recently there has been a kestrel sitting atop a dying poplar watching all of the birds coming to my feeders. I leave him be as it is just nature’s way and all birds need to eat something.
The end of October as everyone knows is Halloween a time when the towns and streets will be full of little ghouls, goblins and witches. Please be careful and watch out for them if you happen to need to travel that night.
Deer season has started with the early hunts and archery season. I know of one person that has a very nice buck (14-points) that they have been watching all summer. The trick now is to figure out his fall routine and capitalize on his mistakes. Good luck to them and everyone else that will be afield this season.
Well, that’s all for this month please watch out for our wildlife and help keep our woods and waters clean.
