The Season of Change

Conner Lee, Naturalist Educator - Specialist

When you think of autumn what is the first thing to come to mind? Maybe it’s the chill in the air as leaves start to turn into a vibrant sea of reds, yellows, and oranges. Maybe it’s a warm spiced drink outside in flannels. Maybe it's pumpkin carving for Halloween.

For me when I think of autumn my first thoughts are of all the changes that come with it, for autumn is a season of change. It’s the world holding its breath and taking a moment of peace after the busy summer, and right before the long quiet winter sets in. The leaves turning then falling to the ground to decompose into next year’s topsoil. Autumn offers up a new perspective of nature, one that no other season can, as if the sun is setting all over. The days grow shorter and colder, as the promise of winter hangs on the wind. But the cold long dark is not here just yet, this is the time of harvest, of coming together to see the fruits of the year prior.

Truly there is no better display of this than to walk in the woods on a cool autumn’s afternoon. While summer’s warmth is no longer present, bearing down on the world, winter’s chill has not set in. The canopy has opened up more as the leaves turn and fall, but the trees are not yet bare as the winter months. The birds that do not migrate are busy caching food for winter, as squirrels scurry along the limbs to do the same.

While up above there is so much bustling around, down on the forest floor there is a more quiet, slow busyness. The weather cooling, and all the new leaves falling gives the right condition for our fungi to flourish. There is no sound, there is no scurrying and clamoring to store up food for the winter, one would be forgiven to not even notice the silent encroach of mushrooms, yet they are there all the same. Living and growing to help keep the cycle of life moving.

When you have the moments to, walk out into the woods this autumn, and look not just to the leaves in the trees, but down to the forest floor. Take a moment to stand in one place and drink in the change all around, however slow it may seem, however big or small, it is there heralding the winter to come. This is what autumn is, the quiet change as the world takes a deep breath before opening the door to winter.