After the Rain, Raccoons

Back to the Woods after two weeks of cold and a light rain. 

The thrill is gone. The beautiful golden color of autumn leaves is gone. Ninety percent of the leaves are down from the trees. Brown leaves cover the forest floor with a pleasant blanket. With most of the leaves down, I can see through the trees, see the winter life in the Woods.

Northeast of the East Pond I watch three large raccoons (fat? thick fur coats?) ascend the steep slope of the escarpment. Likely going to their burrows for a nap. Big pecan above them on the edge of the escarpment broke and fell ten years ago. Its broad root base became a home for a colony of subterraneans - these raccoons? I wonder if the three were siblings, or maybe a parent or two with their progeny. They all looked large, full-grown.

Significant fresh glistening poop (raccoon-like) by old grave trail could have been from one of these three perhaps returning from a night of foraging at the trash station. Interesting to see the trail junction of the Tree Loop and the top of the West Loop trail has become a 'latrine' a location where vertebrates poop repeatedly to mark their territory and leave a calling card. Probably coyote? maybe raccoon?

Two deer crossing the NE field toward Jenkins. More deer 'snorts' west of the Elm Bridge and buck 'scrapes' marking the soil along the west side of the Tree Loop. Breeding and hunting season has arrived.

What is green now in the Woods? The abundant evergreen Euonymus vine, the young Ligustrum privet shrubs regrowing from their roots after 2021 killing February cold. Other exotics, Nandina Heavenly bamboo, Lonicera Japanese honeysuckle, Amur Honeysuckle, Liriope monkey grass, Holly, English ivy, Elaeagnus Autumn olive, Clematis, Multiflora rose, and Pistacia Chinese pistache. Many exotics have a longer green period. Some natives are still green, Sideroxylon Bumelia or Chittamwood, Juniperus western redcedar, two species of Smilax green briar, the twigs and young stem (but not leaves) of Acer negundo box elder, Chasmanthium Inland sea oats, some field grasses Festuca and others growing on the east side of Tree Loop. Some annuals or vines are starting new green growth before the greater winter cold, Stellaria chickweed, Geum Avens, Carolina snailseed, young poison ivy. Some individual trees hold their green leaves after others of the species have dropped them all, the galled red elm above the Eastern Wash, a pin oak on the Tree Loop.

The Woods has now donned its late autumn look and will remain like this until the first significant snow.