Nectar in Slow Motion

Common Eastern Bumble Bee
(Bombus impatiens)

September nights here are refreshing, and there is no question - autumn is moving in on us in all her fragrant technicolor magnificence. One needs a jacket, and its collar is often turned up against the wind on early morning and late day rambles.

Local poplar trees have already gone golden and birches are starting to turn, the cherries are dancing flame colored thickets in the wind. Local maples are touched with scarlet; the oaks are still green for the most part, but they are showing a lovely clear russet along the artfully scalloped edges of their leaves. Our cedar hedges are adorned in early morning with dragonflies (mostly darners) whirring their wings and trying to warm up for flight.

Farm fields in the Lanark highlands are morphing from their vibrant summer greens to bleached straw colors. From a distance, the tall stands of goldenrod on the western hill are in ceaseless motion, and they resemble a rolling golden sea, captivating to watch from the bottom of the hill. They make me sneeze when I get closer to them with camera in hand and a good "close up" lens mounted, but get closer I must, and the pockets of my photographer's vest are stuffed with tissues as well as lenses and filters.

Yesterday morning, almost every waving frond on the hill wore a sleepy slow moving bee which had gone dormant in the cool of the previous evening and was just waking up in the clear cool sunlight. How grand this season is and how truly liminal in its shapes and tints...