A cool breeze whips through the tulip trees, expelling their pale yellow leaves as a warning that the end of summer quickly approaches. I look deeper into the forest and see the tug-of-war between the trees fighting to keep their leaves and the wind effectively delivering the new season, but alas, the trees relinquish their grip and leaves flutter to the floor with the delicacy of a newly fallen snowflake.
From the forest floor sprouts an impossible number of yellow weeds luring fuzzy pollinators to their flowers in hopes of producing another generation before the abrupt end of the season. The bees busy themselves with the wildflowers, determined to complete their job and then hastily make their way to the bull thistle beside them, never wasting a minute. The bull thistle’s spiky appearance is softened by the purple flower that emerges from its intimidating insides, which attracts flying insects of all types. I watch as two male butterflies, an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail and a Pipevine Swallowtail, struggle for the spot atop one of these blooming purple flowers, but to no avail, the Pipevine Swallowtail flutters away as its opponent successfully inhabits all of the flower’s space. The Tiger Swallowtail fans its wings while it eagerly slurps up the nectar, reminding me of gulping a cold drink on a hot summer day.
As I study the butterflies I begin to feel the heat beating down on my back, a cloak of humidity enveloping me like a swaddling blanket. I feel the beads of sweat beginning to form on my forehead, and suddenly I am more aware of my surroundings as if time had taken a snapshot and hit the pause button on the outside world. The commotion of the forest intensifies, creating a symphony of buzzing cicadas, cricket chirps, and the faint calls of a Northern Flicker. The squirrels engross themselves with scouring for acorns, spending months at a time stockpiling for the winter to come. Soon, I too, will cache scarves, blankets, and hot chocolate, preparing my Californian self for a cold winter. But perhaps the busiest creatures of the forest are the ones that often go unnoticed. While trekking through the dew-covered grass I witness a black-tailed red sheetweaver spider in the process of constructing one of their intricate sheet webs between the blades of grass. Their webs are made of a type of non-sticky silk with an elaborate design to ambush flying prey. Covered in droplets of dew, the sheetweaver spider’s web looks like a work of art, soon to be filled with a legion of tiny flies.
Continuing on the dew-ridden path of this secluded and placid section of the forest, I find myself a small set of stairs almost completely covered by soggy fallen leaves. As I sit and watch from the staircase, I feel as though I have found my own “secret garden” hidden away from the openness of the forest. Surrounded by the densely packed beech trees with long, twisting roots, I have moved into the shadows of the forest, blocked from the sun by the impenetrable understory of the trees. I take a moment to allow my senses to analyze my surroundings and in my moment of solitude I smell only the fresh scent of nature and feel the cold, damp wood that I am sitting on. The quietness of the forest seems to overpower the continuing orchestra of bird songs and cricket chirps, and as I sit and ponder the inner workings of the forest, I wonder what magical findings I may discover next time.