Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Woodland with beech trees in autumn color







The local woods are primarily a mixture of oak, sycamore, tulip poplar and beech trees; less common here are hickories, maples, persimmon, birch and sour gum. There are other hardwoods, and here and there relic pine groves. The composition of the local woodlands is easiest to estimate in the autumn as each group colors up.

Right now, the woods glow with the amber tints of ripening beech leaves. For me, this is the most moving and deeply satisfying of the autumnal leaf spectacles.  To walk through the woods now is like being in a huge, translucent, yellow-brown bottle.

Yesterday Wayne caught the woods at their best. He took these photos (using a ten year old point and shoot Kodak digital camera) late in the afternoon when the low sun warmed up the leaf color most agreeably. He was riding his bicycle home at the time, and the path you see in these images is the bicycle path which parallels Beach (not Beech!) Drive in back of my home. As I viewed these images I felt as if I were being drawn into each scene - and then it dawned on me: the path in these images  has a beckoning quality. Great work, Wayne!

No comments: