COLORED LEAVES AND CONIFERS

      Late in October and into November every year in the older suburban areas of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, a mix of brightly-colored, deciduous leaves and the green needles of coniferous trees make beautiful, inspiring scenes.  When driving around the county on errands, I like to see the endless, overwhelming parade of red and yellow, deciduous foliage among the green conifers, all of which make a lovely blending of colors.  And as the dead colored leaves break away from their twig moorings and float to the ground like a veil falling away, the magnificent shapes of green conifers become ever more evident. 

     Fallen leaves carpet the ground with striking colors; and shelter a variety of small plants and animals through the coming winter.  That foliage also decays into the soil, enriching it; and creating food for fungi.  Kids like to shuffle through crisp, dry leaves and jump into piles of them.

     Red maple trees have red foliage in autumn, sugar maple trees exhibit orange leaves and sweet gum trees sport yellow, red and purple foliage.  These are the prettiest of deciduous trees in the suburbs in fall.

     Native white pine and arborvitae trees and alien Norway spruce and blue spruce trees are evergreens most often planted on suburban lawns in this area.  That striking, mixed combination of deciduous trees and coniferous trees in older, local suburbs reminds me of the wild, mixed woods of Canada and the northern United States.          

     Changes in scenery come with the revolving seasons, and fall witnesses the most delightful, and colorful, alterations of the look of landscapes.  If a person tries, he or she can see the subtle, daily changes of autumn in local suburbs, and suburban areas throughout the northeastern United States during October and into early November.   

     Feathers of the blue jays that busily gather acorns and other nuts from planted oaks, hickories and beech trees in local suburbs are beautiful to see flashing sky-blue, black and white among the reds, yellows and browns of those deciduous trees' colored foliage.  And the scurrying of gray squirrels and eastern chipmunks is interesting to watch when those rodents harvest the same nuts.  These three kinds of creatures ingest some of the nuts right away, but stash most of them in tree cavities or holes in the ground to be eaten during the hardships of winter when food is scarce.  

     Carolina chickadees, house finches and other kinds of permanent resident, small birds feed on the seeds in the decorative cones of pines and spruces through each winter, adding to the beauties of those conifers.  And some winters, northern-nesting purple finches, pine siskins and two species of crossbills, all small birds, also feed on pine and spruce seeds.  Crossbills have crossed mandibles to their beaks that pry open the scales of those cones so their moist tongues can pull out the seed under each scale.  

     Look for the striking beauties of colored foliage on deciduous trees and lush, green needles on conifers during October, into November, in the suburbs of the northeastern United States.  And watch the majestic shapes of the evergreens become ever more visible as the veil of dead, colored leaves falls to the ground, carpeting it in beautiful colors.         

        

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