Early November Sightings

Many friends commented on the number of native trees still bearing a full complement of green leaves at the beginning of this month. When planning the annual South Fork Trails Weekend Celebration over the last two decades, the third weekend in October was always chosen as the prime time for hiking as this was the “peak” of the fall colors. Here on eastern Long Island, that meant timing the weekend events with the peak colors of our most common deciduous trees and shrubs: oaks, hickories, huckleberries and lowbush blueberries.

Not this year. My backyard oaks, mostly white oak, finally gave up their chlorophyll colors this past week, and November 11’s wind stripped most of them off the branches. Meanwhile, a less ubiquitous forest tree, the American beech, seemed to peak last... more