Inside the tunnel in the winter I am covered from the cold, and the trees outside are mostly bare.
Inside the tunnel in the summer I look out at the trees that are covered with leaves.
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Sometimes I feel like I'm on a treasure hunt for fall leaves.
As you can tell from the next shot it's still very green at the lake but here and there are fall/autumn leaves.
The mallards cooperated by grouping under some leaves that had changed.
The mallards themselves have an autumn look to me.
The drying seeds and flowers are also looking like fall.
We've had a lot of rain lately which is obvious from the containers on my deck.
I'm continuing to photograph my dogwood tree frequently as it is changing faster than my other trees.
The sweet gum is another of my trees where I feel like I'm watching as the leaf turns.
The butterflies feeding on the flowers at the lake park were so numerous I couldn't count them.
I think at one point I saw over a dozen flitting from flower to flower.
From a distance they looked like they were part of the flower.
They're were so many that even when a bunch flew away if I got too close, at least one or two let me zoom in on them.
Walking around the lake I spotted a few isolated colorful trees mixed in with the green.
The male and female mallard below looked like a good matched pair.
I'm still on the look out for the return of the gulls but only geese and ducks so far. Sometime close to winter the gulls arrive in great quantities and leave during the spring.
I am so happy that summer has finally ended that I relish each new sign of the new season.
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It was interesting to me to see that the planters outside one of my doctor's office buildings had completely different flowers than the last time I was there.
I suspect the others got hit by our early summer drought and were replaced. Now we have more than enough rain so these should last until a hard frost.
The pool in the NC art museum garden had a water lily blooming.
I almost missed it because there was only 1 or maybe 2 blooms.
The NCMA has a ton of yellow rose bushes but they are mostly finished blooming.
There is still a lot of yellow but there are more petals on the ground than on the bush.
One more shot because I couldn't decide which to use.
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When I saw the theme for this week it was an easy choice for me.
Bill and I got out of the car last Sunday and I realized he was wandering off in the opposite direction from where I thought we were going to walk.
Then when I spotted the yellow car I figured out where he was going. Hard not to admire this particular car.
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Most of our trees are still green so when I spotted the fall foliage on trees when I was at a stop light, I had to quickly snap a shot.
At my house the only trees that are changing colors are the dogwoods.
They change a little bit more every day and the berries have changed to red recently.
On one of the art museum woodland trails it was solid green.
I love the native grasses at the art museum park.
There are some mowed areas where the art is, like what's around Collapse I by Ledelle Moe.
The mockingbird below landed on Collapse.
I like the mix of uncut grasses and some are starting to look like fall.
Other grasses at the museum still look like summer.
The grasses below (also from the museum park) look like they would be soft enough to sleep on.
Below the dendroid Askew by Roxy Paine is almost like a preview to the bare trees of winter. I read that the artist prefers that his work be called dendroids (branching structures) as opposed to tree sculpture which is what I would have called it if I hadn't looked up its name and seen the artist's preference.
There are still wildflowers growing along the side of our highways. In case you're wondering, Bill was driving when I took the highway shot.
I almost never take photographs when I'm the driver and if I do, I'm at a stoplight.
The female cardinal below came right up to my bedroom door and didn't mind me photographing it from very close.
It's rare for any of the birds to let me shoot from this close up even if it's through glass. I barely had to zoom at all.
I love how soft the bluejay's feathers look after it's partly dried from a bath.
In a way the grass I said looked soft enough to sleep on reminds me of the birds feathers when they're like this.
Click for the home of nature notes. Note - As I often do, I'm posting a little early.
