Nippenicket November

Consumed by planning my abortive attempt at the Wampanoag Canoe Passage, I actually only kayaked a few times this season.  Today I woke to a bright, cool morning and determined to go to my favorite pond for the first time this year.  My only plan was to enjoy whatever fall color remained.  

Bridgewater's Nippenicket pond is a mile long with a crinkly shoreline and a few small islands.  Waterfront houses both modest and palatial dot the southern shoreline, displaying the variety of ways people enjoy the water.  I have habitually wandered these shallows in my kayak and shamelessly gazed into people's backyards.  Today, though, I went another way, along the straighter eastern shore and soon reached the northern half, which snugs into the edge of the fabled Hockomock Swamp.  I hadn't been this way in over a year, and had forgotten how pretty these wilder parts are.

 I would have LOVED to have a treehouse like this overhanging the water.  Heck, I'd still love it.

 At this point, the road comes close enough to the pond to leave no room for a house lot.

I like to imagine neighborhood kids take advantage of this "unusable" waterfront.

 Little fall color remains.  Here is, I think, highbush blueberry (above) and black oak (below).

I think this is the last house but one before the Swamp.  Quite an estate; a bit out of my price range.

I'm betting nice views from the giant windows and lower and upper decks.

 Birch glows in the sun.

A kitchen stool, in good condition, upright, in the middle of nowhere.  (This photo

beside entry for "middle of nowhere" in the dictionary.)  Evidence for the recent

operation nearby of an Infinite Improbability Drive?  Probably not.  But still...

Nearing the northern end.

Ponds generally get shallower and smaller over time.  This was likely

once an island in the larger pond.  Now it is an island in the marsh.  

 It's hard to see here, but a track through the marsh continuing into a path ashore

tells of regular visitors to this island.

I wish I'd realized where I was when I took the videos below.  I was near the northernmost part of the pond--a place usually choked with water plants and nearly impassable, but accessible at the high water level after all the rain we've had.  The pond is there the source of a stream that flows into the Swamp, and eventually becomes a major tributary of the Taunton River.  In years past I despaired of ever reaching that stream, but it would have been much easier today.  I think I see a return trip this season.

Headed home.

Autumn 4

Wandered around the high school campus again on a foggy-dewy morning while my son refereed.  Lots is going on, some new since I was here two weeks ago, and I took over 200 photos in less than two hours.  Don't worry: I DID edit them down, a little!

 Things fall apart....

..but there can be beauty in decay and death

Red maple (Acer rubrum) can be the brightest of fall trees, but they vary tremendously. 

 The progression by which leaves change varies.

This European buckthorn has red veins, and red around a wound.

Here, I think, is a little scarlet oak (Quercus coccinea) living up to its name.

Black cherry is one of the earliest trees to leaf out in spring, 

but doesn't really get going turning until now.

Tupelo (Nyssa sylvatica) puts on a vivid display, with all its anthocyanin.

It is the brightest of the trees in the lowest image.

 

 

This is either flowering dogwood (Cornus florida), or a close relative.

 

Staghorn sumac (Rhus tomentosa).

 Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) is a native vine 

that begins turning a little early, attracting migrating birds to its fatty berries.

Alas, this vine lies: the berries are low-quality rose hips of neighboring multiflora rose.

 From one side the leaf shines in the morning sun,

from the other side it glows.

 Oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) is a noxious alien vine 

that nevertheless puts on a display in fall, as the yellow exterior of the fruit 

peels back to uncover the bright red interior, which birds gobble up.

 

Bullbriar turns a soft yellow that gives no hint of the harm its stout thorns do

to any who wade through it.

 Silverberry (Eleagnus umbellata) is an alien, but still a favorite of mine:

its leaves and fruit are covered with tiny umbrella-tipped hairs that give the entire plant

a silvery sheet.  Its leaves turn yellow before they fall.

Some plants linger to photosynthesize a little longer.  Here are gray birch

(Betula populifolia), elderberry (Sambucus canadensis), speckled alder 

(Alnus racemosa), multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora) and the alien invasive

European buckthorn (Rhamnus frangula).

Not only are some plants still green, a few are even in flower.

Besides the buckthorn immediately above, a lot of weedy little

Aster vimineus (peeking between deer tongue leaves) 

are still blooming, as well as scattered rough goldenrod

(Solidago rugosa) and the odd chicory (Chicorium intybus).

The stream and pond wwere my last stops.  Colored leaves

drifting downstream dress-up even an urban brook like this one.  

 

 

Some aliens are obvious in their disregard of seaons.

 

A good camera angle obscures the fact that this pond lies close between

a large parking lot and the high school football stadium.

Both mallards and Canada geese call the pond home.  

Overhead, a honking flock of geese head southward.