Fall call

The high-pitched screech of the Blue Jay fills the autumn air as these colorful relatives of the crow gather nuts.

Their loud calls are no doubt warnings for others to keep away. The cries often mimic hawks, thus frightening others into thinking a predator threatens.

Writer Edwin Way Teale observed that not only birds, but also squirrels, muskrats, and rabbits hide when they hear the war-cry of a Blue Jay. For the jay, that’s important. Like the squirrels, jays collect and store nuts for winter dining. In fact, they far outstrip the Gray Squirrel in nut-gathering capacity and in the process, wind up planting more trees than their furry neighbors do. Naturalist M. R. Chettleburgh found that during the single month of October, 30 to 40 jays can gather and plant more than 20,000 acorns, hauling them up to three-quarters of a mile from the mother tree.

Thus, the jay has learned that to win in the war of food gathering, you’ve got to talk tough, not necessarily be tough. You might consider him a politician of the bird world.

Look up

Each September some seem surprised at the “disappearance” of the squirrels. Those rodents that pilfer our birdfeeders and seem bent on running under our tires are suddenly gone from sight.

The squirrels haven't really disappeared. It is harvest season and, hidden in the leaves of oaks, beeches and hickories, squirrels are overhead, gathering ripe nuts fresh off the branch. Yes, they consider your birdfeeder a second-rate source of food. Fresh nuts will always win out.

The puzzlement over the “lack” of squirrels points out a failing many of us have as backyard naturalists. We don't look up.

Dozens of creatures stare down at us as we go for walks, but we rarely see them because our eyes are turned to the ground. Look up and you may see a raccoon mother leading her babies along a limb, a flock of wild turkeys sunning themselves, or an owl eyeing dinner. Look up and you may see a Sharp-shinned Hawk in hot pursuit of a blackbird or a pack of crows mobbing a fleeing Great Horned Owl.

Not only life, but adventure can be found overhead.

Time of much freshness

September is the month of summer’s last fling and winter’s first beckoning, a time when the thermometers might hit 90, yet when you could find the first frost on your lawn.

September’s average high temperature is 74, and low, 50, a range that many would consider just about ideal. But records for the past 20 years show September’s possibilities for extremes: 100 and 23 degrees. The average first frost here is around Sept. 22, the same day this year on which autumn arrives.

September has also been a dry month, averaging only 3.8 inches of rain over the past two decades, one inch less than August or July, or even November. It also has averaged fewer rainy days than any other month – just six.

While that dryness may desiccate lawns and strain wells, September’s weather is about the best that our part of the world has to offer. Many sunny days that are crisp, yet mild, make for great times outdoors. No wonder the Mohawks called September’s full moon Seskhoko-wa – “time of much freshness.”

Blue Mountain tea

Nature comes in many flavors, and on a crisp September morning, you're apt to happen across the spicy scent of anise.

The licorice-like smell is from the Sweet Goldenrod, whose bright plumes join more than two-dozen other goldenrod species to paint fields and roadsides yellow and gold each fall. But Sweet Goldenrod does more than delight the eye and tickle the nose. It might even be considered a patriot.

Back during the Revolution, when the supply of tea from the “motherland” was cut off, colonists turned to native plants to produce a hot beverage. Called Blue Mountain tea, the brew made from dried sweet goldenrod flowers and leaves was a tasty substitute for Chinese varieties.

And it may be good for you, too. Goldenrods have long been used as tonics and medicines. In fact, their scientific name, Solidago, means “to make whole” or heal.

Caesars and Saxons

September, the ninth month, is named the seventh. But it might have been called August, were it not for July.

In ancient Rome, when the year began in March, September was the seventh month and had 31 days. The emperor Augustus decided he was important enough to warrant a month to honor him, just as Julius Caesar had July named for him. Julius’s honor came posthumously, but Augustus was not about to let death rob him of enjoying his tribute.

Augustus should have picked September, his birth month, just as July was Julius’s. But Sextilis, the sixth month, was next to the month of his famous predecessor. Besides, Sextilis had been a lucky month for him, so he renamed it instead. But Augustus didn’t want only 30 days when Julius had 31, so he added a day to August – and took one from September.

In naming their months, the practical and thirsty Saxons were not interested in self-aggrandizement. September was Gerst monat, the barley month, named for the crop harvested then and the chief ingredient in their favorite beverage: Beer.

Hoppy time

Two centuries ago, the beginning of September was hop-picking time in our town. Vine-like herbs that can grow as much as a foot a day, hops bear cone-like fruits widely used in making beer as well as medicines.

Hops not only flavored but preserved beer, critical in the days before refrigeration. Back then, beer was not looked upon as the stuff of guzzlers but as a nutritious beverage that was long lasting and safer than water, which might carry diseases and parasites.

Many small farmers here grew hops as a side crop. It did not require much space because most of the growth was vertical – up poles (“hop” is from the Anglo-Saxon, hoppan, to climb). The area of the farm set aside for growing hops was called a “hopyard.” Small farmers picked and baled the fruits or “strobili” to ship to mills and drug manufacturers.

The hop, by the way, is closely related to marijuana. In fact, as one authority reports, “counterculture entrepreneurs have apparently succeeded in grafting hops tops on marijuana bottoms and getting a ‘heady hop.’” However, to maintain good health and stay out of jail, drink your hops, don’t toke them.

(Photo shows hops climbing a pole at the Hazel Farm in South Ryegate, Vt.)

Butterflyways

Nature can be remarkably adaptable. Many examples have been documented of how wildlife has profitably used modern eyesores. Old cars dumped offshore create artificial reefs where fish, mollusks and crustaceans thrive. Once-rare peregrine falcons make their homes on microwave relay towers.

Now, one of the ugliest wounds man has cut into the landscape has been found to have its good side, too. Butterflies love interstates.

“Highways are of major importance for butterflies,” reports Jeff Boetner, a University of Massachusetts entomologist, who discovered that Silvery Blues (pictured), Common Ringlets and other species are extending their ranges, thanks to the interstate highway system. As one observer put it, “viewed from the perspective of a butterfly, an interstate highway is just an endless, sun-drenched field.”

This is especially true of roads that have been planted with wildflowers, a project many states have taken on more aggressively than our own. Be they herbs or shrubs, plantings help reduce the ugliness of expressways; if they provide food and shelter for wandering butterflies and birds, so much the better.

Now if our winged friends could only learn to fly above – not through – the traffic…