September 2024
September is a transition month
September is a transition month. I paddled out almost daily the first part of the month in search of Least Bittern, my wonderful, secretive companions in the North Tivoli Bay. With no luck. So I contented myself with admiring Great Blue Herons fishing the bay and Great Egrets sailing south through the sky. I found a new favorite fall flower, the Bottle Gentian, and wonder, as I often do, how I had missed this all these years. It takes years to learn to see.
A short trip to Colorado allowed me to revisit old friends, the Ponderosa Pines and the Gray Jays and to spy a sleek, cunning Abert’s Squirrel. But I also visited a habitat new to me, a fen. Just the word made me want to visit as it sounded more suited to Ireland or Scotland than to Colorado. A fen is a peat-forming wetland that is fed by ground water (not rainwater, like a bog) and is a fragile, and perhaps overlooked habitat—on the surface it looks like a vast prairie, with long views to the horizon. But fens hold secrets, particularly of rare plants and need to be protected. This area, near Fairplay, is protected by the Nature Conservancy, and as I walked out, I had a sense that anything was possible underfoot. I didn’t see any of the rare blooms but I did see delicate Bog Aster and Slendertube Skyrocket. And I saw my first thirteen-lined ground squirrel. Great name, and beyond adorable.
