Sure Signs of Fall

Friends from back East emailed me some beautiful pictures of the fall colours around their house. Amazingly vibrant reds and such. I do miss the sugar maple's dramatic fire orange leaves of fall. It's much more difficult to find these blazing colours on the West Coast.

Other than the days getting progressively shorter, a noticeable nip in the air and of course, the rains that have started to come more regularly... I decided to go look for sure signs of fall.

Here are a few:

Above, a sample of Oregon grape (Mahonia aquifolia) in the fall. It does go a bit deeper red, in some spots, so it qualifies as a fall colour item...

Then, there are the tall ferns that border the driveway to our place. They die back at this time of year. Before they die back, they go yellow and dry up. Their texture presents a gorgeous light contrast to the dark Douglas fir and cedar forest around here.



Then, there is the Bigleaf maple (Acer macrophyllum, of course). They can be very large, and their wear their name well... Big leaves, you could serve a meal on those.

And finally, the eagles have returned from their fishing holiday near the rivers of Vancouver Island and the mainland. They were gone for a couple of months, but they are back!

This morning, at 8 am, I heard the distinct peeping of an eagle, and looked out the window: sure enough, there he (or she, I didn't ask) was, perched on the tree and surveying the countryside for something to eat. In the background, the neat rows across the water belong to Morning Bay Vineyard, on Pender Island. I plan to make an outing to this vineyard, one of these days...