Look Closer…         By: Claudia Corona         10/07/09

I walked on a path of red and gold today. No, not of carpets, but of leaves. Yellow leaves, gold leaves, red leaves, leaves in-between, lay on the Ford Glen Brook path as well as around the trees, no longer scattered but piling up. Where a week ago, I could once see the bedrock beneath my feet and the soil smearing my boots, I now saw leaves.

I wondered why there were so many more leaves on the ground now, and the wind patiently answered my question tickling my ears and moving a few strands of my hair. It was a persistent wind, and the leaves were in no mood to resist staying on their branches after having worked all year, so they gave in and fell, thus coloring a once boring brown ground into a red and gold one, making anyone traversing the path feel humbled to be in the presence of such beautiful natural change.

It was loud, and too quiet, at the same time. The leaves I stepped on lacked the melodious crunching sound of “foot on leaf”. I could hear that Ford Glen Brook however, demanded attention. I walked over to it, and noticed that the brook was definitely much fuller than it was a week ago. It then became clear to me that the volume of the rushing water had made its sound more pronounced and mighty, explaining all its attention-seeking uproar.

But I had a mission today. My task was to see or hear fauna. So I treaded the trail as quietly as I could and when I thought I had gone far enough into the forest, I stopped. I looked to my left for about ten minutes and just as I was about to call it quits, out of the corner of my eye I saw movement. Something yellowish fluttered down from a birch tree. The beat of my heart quickened at the hope of having spotted a bird. It twirled in the air, but it had no wings, no body, no head; it was a leaf, gliding to the ground. I talk about this because it happened several times in the thirty minutes I spent looking for fauna, ten minutes on each side (left, center, right). I would be looking at one place to see if I could spot an Eastern chipmunk like I had my first visit here, or maybe hear a woodpecker like I had my second visit, but nothing! Briefly, I could hear crows cackling in the distance, but they weren’t in my site, so they don’t count, technically.

Continuing my stroll on the red and gold carpet I briefly wondered if it was opposite day. At least, that was my take on the sights before me. Many fallen logs that were once dark brown were now covered in luscious green fungi. The fungi felt soft and rugged, and had a rotten smell to it. But the interesting thing was that blotches of fungi only covered the top half of the log; there were very few patches of fungi on the bottom half, and rarely on on the bottom sides.  I noticed the same thing on fallen logs with the polypore (mushroom without a stalk) mushrooms growing on them, they only grew on the top or on the upper sides, acting as soft white selves, but none occupied the bottom half. The wood that hosted both the fungi and the mushrooms felt damp, just like the leaves felt wet and I discerned another relationship in my site.

Filling up the brook wasn’t the only thing that the recent rain had done! As it fell down on the ground, it not only soaked the leaves and trees; it also signaled a green light for the fungi and mushroom bacteria, which took advantage of the moist state of fallen logs and decaying trees. The fungi and mushrooms sprouted all over the damp logs and then reproduced where it was wet, which would be the top half, because this was the target place of falling rain!

It is amazing how nature works! I thought that nothing was going on today at Ford Glen Brook, but that was only a facade. If you look closer, you can see plenty of activity, from fungi reproduction to red carpet leaf making to water volume rising, it is happening. We just have to look at the small things sometimes to be able to explain the big picture.