Golden Leaves Raining Down

First time back to the Woods after Monday night's great 2 inch rain. At 10 AM I entered the Woods through the SW Gate. Clear blue sky, high 50's; 15 MPH wind; beautiful day.
The yellow gold leaves were streaming down from the trees. This week is likely going to be the week with the greatest leaf drop. Some hackberry maintain full green crowns. Most trees, green ash, elm, hackberry, are dropping leaves. Wonder if the now-green trees are genetically always late leaf droppers.. or if their roots had more moisture this summer.. or something else. Areas of the Woods are blanketed with beautiful yellow.. the deepest and richest yellow are the pecan leaves.
Ponds have more water: the West Pond looked full size again for the first time since this summer. Depth was 2.26 feet. Southern leopard frog was calling there at 4:00. The East Pond was good too but not full size yet. Depth was 0.48 feet.
Out on the new Tree Loop (north eastern leg) I saw again a large black Meloid oil beetle. Wonder why they are out this time of the year?
The rain Monday had pushed rafts of leaves and small woody plant parts westward in drifts. The floods had gone nearly all the way to the SW Gate from the Beaver Dam. The standing water was all gone from the forest floor. The western wash had full pools but no water flowing past the Isld Crossing.
Later in the day 2 PM I returned to the Woods with Jackson H, Claire C, Emily K and Heather M.
Jackson commented book by David Wardle, Communities and Ecosystems discusses variation in decomposition communities below various trees. Emily and Claire found a nice Anax junius green darner hanging on to a young green ash east of the Elm Bridge. It was likely very near death by old age as it did not attempt to fly away as Emily picked it up by hand. Beautiful colors and odd looking bubbles of fluid (water) visible through the cuticle in the anterior thorax.

Juniper berries are down in profusion by large juniper at junction of Pipeline Trail and Escarpment Trail.
Three deer in the central Woods W. of the white trail in the morning and one buck W. end of dune. Three deer in the afternoon in the SW Woods along the Main SW Trail.
I blue blazed the new Tree Trail and now need to tag all the trees with numbers and prepare an identification guide.

Large green ash top broken across and blocking N end of W. Dune Trail.. need saw. There is still a lot of tree breakage in these woods. I wonder which tree spp. and diameter classes are breaking most commonly. What is the principal cause.. wind, ice, rot?