Week of September 6 · CalgaryWorth stepping outside for
Happening now
The sun sets before eight now
The sun is about to go down before 8pm for the first time since spring, and it won't set that late again until spring comes back around. Daylight is disappearing at close to four minutes a day right now, about as fast as it ever moves, because at this point in the year the sun's daily track meets the horizon at its steepest angle. The two ends of the day are not shrinking equally either. The evening is giving up more light than the morning is, which is why the loss feels like it is all happening after supper rather than before breakfast. Nearly everything else outside is running on the same clock: the birds leaving, the leaves turning, and the frost coming.
Mushroom season is warming up
Late August is when the mushroom year gets interesting, and the trigger is rain. A good soak followed by a few warm days can flush boletes and others up through the spruce duff within the week. Nothing to chase today; when conditions line up, this card will change and tell you.
Warblers are moving through
Small greenish birds are working through the willows and the garden shrubs right now, flicking branch to branch and almost never holding still. These are warblers heading south, and most of them fly at night, which is why a thicket that was empty yesterday can be busy at first light. There's no song to go by in autumn, and the birds have traded their spring colours for a dull yellow green that even experienced birders give up on naming. That is the freeing part, because you don't have to know which one it is to know that migration is happening in your hedge. By early October the shrubs go quiet again.
Chokecherries are turning black
The city's chokecherries are shading from red to nearly black, and that's ripeness. Too astringent to enjoy raw (the name is honest), they're the classic prairie syrup-and-jelly fruit, and for robins and waxwings they're the feast of late summer. Watch a heavily loaded tree for ten minutes and count the visitors. If you pick, take only the flesh; the pits and leaves aren't safe to eat.
Also this week
tap for the full story
The elk have started bugling
A week in and building toward the middle of the month. Cold, still mornings carry the sound farthest
Nighthawks are streaming south
The big evening flights are done. A few are still working the lit ball diamonds at dusk, and then they are not
Fall migration is already happening
The big flocks have moved through. Frank Lake still turns up birds worth the drive on a quiet morning
Aurora season is reopening
Quiet so far, and the moon is nearly gone. New moon lands Friday, so this week has the darkest late nights of the month