This morning is a brisk, but not cold, overcast day, one that compelled a walk with camera in hand for a close look at small beauties.
Tiny cups and saucers are suggested by some of the fungus and the colours of quickly approaching Christmas in the other.
The growth on this decaying log seems to suggest that there is a whole micro-cosmic world of possibility in the small forest. For the insects that run rampant through it on warmer days, I am sure there is the same quest for food and shelter, lust and love, a battle of wills and stories of battles and survival that haunt our larger human world.
Bark always presents interesting colour and patterns and this is of a hole started by Pileated woodpeckers in a large hemlock. It has beat away the heavy bark layer and is now starting to peck away at the wood underneath. This is fresh activity because the wood is still very bright. The woodpeckers hunt for ants and other boring insects.
The slender branches of the wild cinnamon roses are a deep red and the leaves are surprisingly still on the bush, perhaps only now for a few more short days.
Fungi are perhaps some of the most interesting things to be examined. I particularly enjoyed this one that was growing on an old beech tree stump.
It is a banded and cascading thing of subtle beauty.
And perhaps the loveliest of the late fall blooms is the spidery yellow of the Witch Hazel. It waits in ordinary green leaves for the entire summer, and fades to autumn brown before breaking into a dynamic show after the first hard frost.
The hazel is like some people, it must first grow, and appear bland, then with the cruelty of life, the hardening in cold times, they burst open, blooming, exposing themselves for their real self. Colourful but hardy even if delicate in appearance.
For other images from today: http://www.mboot.net/imagetest.htm
© Cynthia Ryder 2008
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