Climax of the Year

     Sometime around September 21st is the autumn equinox and, to me, the middle of fall and the climax of the year.  The spring and fall equinoxes are the only times of the year when each part of the entire Earth receives 12 hours of sunlight and 12 hours of darkness, from pole to pole, as a result of our planets' tilting 23 degrees on its axis as it circles the sun.
     According to the human calendar, autumn is from about September 21 to around December 21, a total of three months.  Each season is three months long.  But I think fall in the Mid-Atlantic States runs from about August 7 to around November 7, a total of three months, with September 21 in the middle of that season.  I see autumn in August because of the lesser amount of daylight each succeeding day, the migration of shorebirds, swallows and other bird species and the climax of much plant growth.
     By September 21 in the Middle Atlantic States, most vegetation attained its peak of growth and produced its seeds nuts or berries.  It reached its climax.  Weedy fields won't get any weedier. Thickets of trees, shrubs, vines and tall weeds and grasses won't get any thicker and some gardens, roadsides and abandoned fields won't get any more overgrown with plants than late September.
     Most seeds, nuts and berries will be eaten by rodents, birds and other kinds of wildlife through fall and winter.  But those that survive being ingested, and find suitable conditions, will sprout during the warmth of the next spring.
     Wild plants and animals prepare for the coming winter in autumn.  Many kinds of birds migrate south to find reliable food sources.  Their job done, deciduous leaves and their green chlorophyll die, revealing the reds and yellows that were in those leaves all summer, but dominated by chlorophyll.  By late September one can see colored leaves on black gum, staghorn sumac, sassafras, red maple, sugar maple and a few other types of trees.  The tops of many ground plants die, but their perennial roots live and sprout new tops the next spring.  The cold-blooded reptiles and amphibians, and many kinds of invertebrates, retreat to sheltering places for the winter.  Wood chucks and black bears put on layers of fat to survive that harshest of seasons.  Squirrels, chipmunks, beavers and blue jays store food for winter consumption.  And those alleged forecasters of winter's severity, the handsome, bristly woolly bear caterpillars, the larvae of Isabella moths, bustle across country roads in search of shelter in the ground for the winter.
     While I rejoice in the overwhelming bounty and beauty of wild vegetation and wildlife in fall here in the Mid-Atlantic States, I also feel a bit sad around the autumn equinox, and in fall, because they represent the coming of cold, snow, ice, increased darkness each day, and the resulting dormancy of many wild plants and animals.  Maybe it's because most wildlife is not courting and much vegetation is dying, reminding me that all life, including mine, comes to an end.  Cheering bird song no longer fills the woods and thickets.  Vegetation is no longer growing.
     But there is much beauty and serenity in our woods, fields and roadsides during late September and into October, including the beauties of flowers that bloom during late summer and into fall.  Some of the more common, pretty flowers we see along roadsides and field edges are goldenrods and Jerusalem artichokes with their boldly-yellow blossoms on tall stems.  Some damp meadows and roadsides are dominated by a couple of species of asters, one kind with small, white flowers and the other with little, pale-lavender ones.  Other flowering plants in certain moist pastures and roadsides include the abundant and bushy-looking spotted jewelweeds with orange blooms, bur-marigolds that have yellow blossoms, smartweeds with their pink flowers and great lobelia that have blue flowers.
     The innumerable aster and jewelweed flowers supply much nectar to wildlife in autumn, the last copious amounts of that sugary liquid those creatures will get for the year.  Many bees, butterflies and other kinds of insects visit aster blossoms, while migrating ruby-throated hummingbirds dip their long bills into jewelweed blooms.        
     The countryside in the Mid-Atlantic States is beautiful around the autumn equinox and into October.  And there is a profound and notable climax of plant growth and wildlife activities at that same lovely time of year.  Then nature prepares for the coming winter, which is a period of dormancy used to gather resources for the next push of growth in spring.