7 September

 A glorious autumn day in the Forest and Estuary.

Again, the loop path was dry and reasonably clear.  It offered much to be seen.  

A new term appeared in the press recently:  "komorebi" is Japanese for sunlight filtering through leaves.  It's something we've observed and photographed often in the Forest.

Perhaps hemlock is particularly adept at showing komorebi because of the structure of its needles:

Cedar and its moss are also a fine source:

For the first time, we were able to see the tiny cones characteristic of hemlock.  The reader may need to enlarge this photo to see the cones.

First Nations folk tell how hemlock's cones became so tiny:  The Creator was distributing cones among the assemblage of trees.  Hemlock was very pushy and crowded to the front of the gathering, "Me!  Me!  Give me the best cones!" .  The Creator disapproves of pushy behaviour and ignored Hemlock, leaving him until last to receive cones.  Only little cones were left.  

An aerial photo of the Forest shows wet patches within it--enough to qualify as swamp.  The loop path passes one of those areas, which shows what look to be very tall shore pines.  

These appear to be limited to a small region of the northeast of the Forest.  

Fungi are emerging rapidly.  A sizeable growth of oyster mushrooms has emerged over the past week.  

A conk leaves us with the question, "Who's observing whom?"

Near the shore of the Marsh, a very big Douglas Fir has been labelled a Wildlife Tree.

A tree, thoroughly drilled by red-breasted sapsuckers and deeply excavated by a pileated woodpecker, has now become habitat for slime molds as well.

At the Marsh, the water level has sunk further.

A bare Mount Arrowsmith continues to await its first snowfall.

The high point of our visit to the Marsh was a splendid female northern harrier, who hunted relentlessly as we watched.  She never settled, but remained in flight over the entire Marsh. 

After watching her, we made our way back through the Forest.  Squirrels had had a party with the fir cones.

Mushrooms were springing up along the path.

Woodpeckers continue their work on this stump.  One day it will follow the last "woodpecker stump" to nurture the soil.

It was indeed a fine day, with a wealth to be observed.