Outdoors: More than just leaves fell last autumn

There was so much more than foliage falling during last year's autumn months.

September brought catastrophic rains and flooding from Texas to the Bahamas. For far too many, the sky indeed began falling down with Dorian, one of the most violent hurricanes recorded, with gusts up to 220 mph. Storm surges devastated the Bahamas as our Atlantic coast was pummeled ferociously, especially in North Carolina as the storm lingered and advanced at snail-pace up the East Coast. This time Massachusetts lucked out.

Gun supplies fell, too. Responding to yet more mass shootings, Walmart, America's largest retailer, selling one out of every five bullets purchased in our country, ceased handgun and assault rifle ammunition sales. Fortunately for sportsmen, Walmart continued sales of hunting ammunition, rifles and shotguns.

With flower petals falling and most nectar sources drying up, hummingbirds left us in mid-September. Simultaneously, the last peaches fell just as the brief, much-anticipated broad-winged hawk migration merely trickled over Mount Wachusett and Mount Watatic. The counts this fall were disappointingly low.

Summer ended with asters and goldenrod conspicuously blooming as mushroom gatherers went afield harvesting baskets-full of delicious suillus and boletus fungi, all of which benefited from earlier rains.

Fall officially began with temperatures unnaturally in the high 80s -- and word that North America's bird population had tragically decreased by nearly 3 billion over the last 50 years. Old-time birders anecdotally knew our world was no longer like the good old days, when trees during migration were "dripping with warblers." Our younger generation, especially those that don't immerse themselves in nature, has come to perceive as normal a much-diminished natural world than their parents enjoyed just a short time ago.

No one had to tell our bird-banding research team at the Auburn Sportsman's Club that migratory bird numbers were down. In 30 years of Lyme disease studies, we mist-netted fewer birds than ever. On Sept. 21, we were shocked to not catch a single neotropical warbler. Climate change, domestic cat predation, habitat change and loss all continued to take their tragic and pathetically unsung toll.

At Cape Cod, further evidence of oceanic warming shocked commercial fishermen. Lobstermen pulling pots between Scorton Creek and Barnstable Harbor on Sept. 23 found their traps shockingly filled with dead lobsters. The area was a veritable crime scene with dead fish, shellfish and sea worms, too. Scientists urgently called to the scene from the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown found no toxins in the dead lobsters, but the bottom levels of water where the lobsters and other marine casualties live were lethally devoid of oxygen.

The scientists and the lobstermen had never seen dissolved oxygen levels this low in Cape Cod Bay. The abnormally warm, sunny autumn had impacted the 30-80-foot depths frequented by the lobsters. Normally, cool northern winds would chill the water surface and help mix the abundant oxygen normally found in the upper levels of water with the heavier, less-oxygenated bottom water. The absence of major storms and cold spells during the period kept oxygen from being distributed. In bathwater conditions, the lobsters suffocated.

In late September, the wrath of massive demonstrations in 150 countries fell on the deaf ears of political leaders who have allowed climate change to go unabated. Six million people urged leadership to stem future catastrophic global heating that already had caused previously unimaginable wildfires, heat waves, heavy rainfall and extreme storm surge flooding.

Some 500,000 marched the streets of Montreal, I along with them, to highlight our sickening planet, which is now 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it was a hundred years ago, a condition that has caused seas to rise 9 inches higher and tragically melt essential, climate-stabilizing glaciers. A 16-year-old named Greta Thunberg from Sweden put to task an older, unresponsive generation that continues to do nothing for our children's future world. She would later win Time Magazine's Person of the Year -- and be ridiculed by Trump.

September, the beginning of the moose mating season, ended with a young bull moose, one of about a thousand in the state, wandering into St. John's Cemetery. For safety, it fell to a tranquilizing dart and was transported to a local state park for release. Another 600-pound young bull moose was found on Pleasant Street in Worcester, and similarly tranquilized for safe, live-removal. Two more hormonally-driven bull moose followed a female in estrus into the Auburn area. White-tails are no longer the only deer in town – especially in September.

October began with record heat-wave temperatures throughout the East. Hundreds of records fell as temperatures hit 100. Up north at high elevations, the first frost occurred on Oct. 3, causing waves of insect-dependent birds in the White and Green mountains to begin migrating south.

In California where winds were building more fiercely than ever, electricity was shut off for days for hundreds of thousands of customers to pre-emptively stop broken lines from again starting catastrophic forest and brush fires.

Our first Nor'easter struck on Oct. 10, shutting down ferries to Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. Jaegers, skuas, gannets, shearwaters, petrels, sea ducks and other seabirds including a rare brown booby from tropical waters were blown into Cape Cod Bay in large numbers.

A second Nor'easter on Oct. 17 -- this one a record low-pressure storm -- hit us with heavy rains and violent winds up to 90 mph off Provincetown. Planes and hangars at Logan Airport were impacted. Trees and power lines went down, leading generators to roar from the coast to Oakham and beyond. The record-low 973 millibars of pressure for October meant that air was rising overpoweringly, as if the cap were taken off of a shaken bottle of soda. Nature abhors a vacuum. Peripheral air moved underneath with hurricane-force.

While California was suffering historically massive Santa Ana wildfires again from dangerously low humidity, high heat and high winds, local heavy winds erased much of our peaking color, turning most of the North Country's mountain vistas bleak gray. With building heat stored in our ocean, the warmer water continued to act like a power-charged battery, energizing the atmosphere all over the world to a degree that we had never seen. Our local coastal damage could have been far worse. Luckily, this time, the punishing winds coincided with very low tides. Two weeks later, our coast would have had catastrophic flooding.

Later in the month, inland fishermen were happy with tight-line action as MassWildlife conducted its fall trout stockings in finally cooling waters. There were 60,000 rainbows and 4,000 browns added to the excitement of our changing foliage.

On Oct. 30, the Massachusetts birding world lost one of its greatest leaders. Bill Drummond, teacher, pioneering field trip leader, and one of this writer's mentors, passed away from complications of dementia. He loved showing exciting birds to people and sharing their joy. Fronto-temporal dementia cruelly took away his communication abilities. In the end, he couldn't speak. Thousands across the country mourned him for introducing them passionately to birds through his nationally famous field trips.

October ended with temperatures in the 70s and more trick-than-treat winds and rain. The final totals for the autumn hawk watch at Mount Wachusett were low and included just 2,832 broad-winged hawks, 402 turkey vultures, 359 sharp-shinned hawks, 146 bald eagles, 141 kestrels, 133 osprey, 114 Cooper's hawks, 101 unidentified raptors, 79 red-tailed hawks, 52 merlins, 34 peregrine falcons, 12 red-shouldered hawks, 10 northern harriers, 7 black vultures and 1 Mississippi kite. Counting all the unidentified raptors, the marathon effort resulted in 4,474 raptors being recorded. Disappointingly, not one goshawk, rough-legged hawk or golden eagle was observed.

November began with heavy winds contributing to massive leaf-fall. A 40-degree plunge in temperature brought the first real frost to the area and the end of many surprisingly still-producing tomato gardens. Stowe and Okemo began making snow. Record cold temperatures subsequently descended all the way down to Florida, just at the onset of the whitetail rut. Archers were challenged.

Meanwhile, as wildfires continued to consume vast areas of California, drought ravaged much of Africa, claiming the lives of hundreds of elephants in Zimbabwe. Rising seas caused horrific, record-flooding in Venice, jeopardizing the World Heritage Site's historic architectural treasures. Unprecedented wildfires in Australia destroyed more than 80% of the koala's habitat, burning thousands of them along with countless marsupials. The toll by year's end would be far worse.

In Cape Cod Bay, the local chill resulted in migrating Kemp's Ridley turtles suffering near-fatal hypothermia. Their body temperatures fell dangerously into the 40s. Only those washed ashore were lucky enough to be found and saved. Annually drawn ever farther north by increasingly warming waters and abundant crabs, they now find themselves too far north, with too many additional miles to swim, to safely return to southern waters before our abrupt chill begins.

Calendar

Friday through Sunday -- Marlboro Fly Fishing Show and Film Festival. Arguably the most exciting fly-fishing show in the country. Royal Plaza Trade Center, 181 Boston Post Road West, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday, 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Saturday, 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Sunday. $15. Children under 5 free. $50,000 in door prizes, including trips to fish the Seychelles, Cuba, Belize, Yucatan, Restigouche, Brazilian Amazon and Colombia's jungle. Films and classes with world experts, some requiring tuition. Information: (814) 443-3638.

--Contact Mark Blazis at [email protected].

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