Although we seldom see snakes -- garter snakes -- in the ravined forest, we know they're there in fair numbers. It's usually only in the spring or the fall that they make their presence known. Then, cooler temperatures impel them to seek out the comforting warmth of the sun. So they tend to situate themselves wherever the forest canopy is lightest, and where the sun penetrates, and that will often be on rocks or bare areas like trails.

And the odd thing about their presence that we've long noticed is that though we're excited to see them out of curiosity, they're excited too and swiftly retreat, winding their way through the underbrush and out of sight. No, it's not that we think is curious, but rather the reaction of our dogs. Like Button and Riley, Jackie and Jillie pay no mind to snakes. It's as though they cannot even see them, though we know they're instantly aware of and usually react to, anything that moves.

We've spoken to others of our ravine-walking acquaintances about their dogs' reactions to the presence of snakes and they're in agreement; dogs don't appear to evince any curiosity about the presence of snakes unlike the attention they give to squirrels, chipmunks, raccoons, even birds.

That fall is introducing itself to the environment is unmistakable. Soon we'll be hearing geese flying their formations overhead, calling down to us. We can see that juvenile crows and robins are beginning to assemble. We see and hear goldfinches once again in the woods, passing through. Birds are returning from the boreal forest to begin the process of migration, making their way south for the winter hiatus.

In the meanwhile, hiking through the woods it's the fall floral offerings of wildflowers that remind us of the fleeting summer season. The proliferation of goldenrod, fall asters and pussy-toes not seen earlier in the season, for example.

Pussy Toes

The small trees whose presence puzzled us back in the early days of summer which we'd never before seen in the ravine with their white floral panicles that have since transformed themselves into berries and which we now know are elderberries no longer present as a mystery to us. A species better known to grow in southern Ontario they're clearly extending their range. And just as clearly they're able to proliferate, swiftly colonizing the area alongside the creek at the ravine's bottom.

Yesterday too we came across a seldom-seen sight; a clump of white baneberry. It's red baneberry that we see most often growing on the forest floor among the forest's understory residents like dogwood, serviceberry and honeysuckle, among the hawthorns and the sumacs and wild apple trees, interspersed with maples, poplars, willow, hackberry, oaks, ash, beech, cherry, birch and evergreens like cedar, pine, spruce and fir.

White baneberry among ferns

We do indeed commune with nature; of course that should be reversed. Nature informs us of her moods her intentions, her landscape interventions, and we pay heed. The process prolonged, informative, entertaining and inexorable.

Jewelweed