Autumn Leaf Watch, Weekly Report

NOTE TO EDITORS: The following is the second in a series of weekly Nova Scotia Autumn Leaf Watch reports planned for this fall. Compiled by the Department of Tourism and Culture, the report includes summary paragraphs at the top of each trail section that can be lifted and used for a shorter report.

Throughout Nova Scotia, from top to bottom, autumn is fast approaching with fields, forests, bogs, marshes and roadsides entering the season highlighted and shaded with wonderful colours to treat the eye.

REGION 1: Evangeline Trail

Berries and wildflowers are providing a lovely contrast against the rich mixed forests of the Evangeline trail while many trees are starting to show brilliant fall colours.

• Site 1, Arcadia: No change but the weather is still summer- warm.

• Site 2, Ellenwood Park Provincial Park: Lush hardwood forests and bogs are just beginning to transform with colour.

• Site 5, Digby: The view of the hillside over the bay is becoming speckled with pockets of yellow in the birches, while ferns and other ground cover are changing to a golden-yellow mixed with red. Half the Japanese maples are dark red and the mountain-ash and blueberries are starting to turn red.

Smith's Cove: Small patches of colour are beginning to show along the winding trail. Bracken is turning yellow and brown, and some striped maple are going yellow while the white ash is beginning to show yellow and purple. Pin-cherry, red and sugar maple, and abundant hawthorn berries are adding to the reddish tinge. Witherod berries are nice in lime-green, pink and dark blue. The alders and cones in the white and red spruce are adding a nice brown element.

• Site 6, Bear River: Pin-cherries are turning red, the odd maple tree has some red showing, and the staghorn sumac is red. Ferns and grasses are turning yellow and brown.

Greenwich: Deep Hollow Road has thinly scattered patches of colour becoming evident. White birch, sugar, moose and mountain maples are starting to turn orange with the odd sugar maple and shadbush displaying a brilliant red. Roadsides are a wash of yellows with goldenrod and ostrich fern, purple asters and deep orange-red rose hips.

• Site 10, Hall's Harbour: Almost a quarter of the sugar maples on the Echo Trail are showing bright patches of yellow and red with red berries in the mountain ash and ferns turning brown and yellow. Lots of purple blackberries and red rose hips with pretty blue asters in bloom.

• Site 10, Smith's Corner: Just a tinge of colour in some of the branches.

Explore history at the Prescott House Museum in Starr's Point near Wolfville. Hear the family's story and find out the role some of them played in the field of medicine and in the First World War.

REGION 2: Glooscap and Sunrise Trails

Autumn is advancing along the Glooscap and Sunrise trails where 10 to 20 per cent of the trees have changed colour.

• Site 15, Burntcoat Head Park: Quantities of red apples are dotting trees and the ground. Low brush and shrubs are showing some orange, purple and yellow. The mountain ash is turning orange and there is some yellow in the yellow birch. Ferns, grasses and alders along the trail are becoming brown and yellow, and grasses in the surrounding fields are yellowing up. There is some purple in the bracken.

Courthouse Hill: Maple and aspen are beginning to turn red and yellow and the blueberries in some of the fields are showing a blush of red.

• Site 18, Five Islands: Small patches of yellow and brown in the oaks, and the white and yellow birch trees are starting to turn yellow and brown. Lots of yellow goldenrod, red apples and golden-brown cones on the cedars.

• Site 19, Kirkhill: A slight change to yellow in the sugar maples and ferns.

• Site 20, Cape Chignecto Peninsula: Lots of red mountain-ash berries in Cape d'Or with tinges of red and orange in the sugar maple, and a yellowing of the white and yellow birch and aspen. Shrubs, ferns and grasses are showing some red, orange and yellow.

• Site 21, Amherst: A light wash of brown in the tall marsh grasses.

• Site 22, Fenwick: Small patches of red in the sugar maple and some yellow on the white birch.

• Site 23, Wentworth: The odd sugar and red maple tree in Wentworth High Head has turned bright red. There is a slight wash of yellow in the ferns, grasses, and white and yellow birches while the pin-cherries are starting to go red.

• Site 24, Wallace: No change at the mouth of the Wallace River.

• Site 25, Balmoral Mills: There are a few patches of red appearing in the tops of the sugar maple upstream, and some purple in the beech trees.

Nuttby Mountain: The vista of trees are laced with a tinge of colour in all the hardwood and seem poised on the edge of change. The old fields are brown with dried-out grasses aglow with the yellow of goldenrod.

• Site 26, Mount Thom: The lushly forested view is still very green with a few red maples turning bright red. Some grasses are turning yellow.

• Site 28, Marshy Hope: Tones of muted yellow are emerging in the yellow birch and sugar maple and there is an accent of red from the occasional red maple. Elsewhere in the steeply-sided valley, yellows are advancing in the elm, white and yellow birch, and aspen, as are browns in the alder, shrubs and ferns.

See the miller process wheat, oats, barley, rye and buckwheat into flour daily at the Balmoral Grist Mill Museum, Balmoral Mills near Tatamagouche, daily from 10 a.m. to noon and 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

A Gaelic-culture learning festival, called Feis Chadaich a Tuath North Shore, runs Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 23-24. It features workshops in the Gaelic language, song, fiddle, step and square dancing. It also includes a milling frolic, square set and Gaelic church service.

Explore the world of the night sky at the Museum of Industry in Stellarton on Sept. 26, from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.

REGION 3: Cape Breton Island

Autumn is taking a hold of Cape Breton Island and from mountain top to salt marsh the trees and plants are beginning to shift into brightening colours.

• Site 31, Mabou Salt Marsh: Most of the salt marsh grass is now an orangey-yellow and some of the cattails are losing their green. There are splashes of red in a few of the trees lining the marsh.

• Site 33, Cap Le-Moine: The area is mostly green with a gentle overall yellowing. Fields are crowded with white-topped aster, yellow goldenrod, brown curly dock, red rose hips and purple Joe- pie weed. Red in the mountain-ash and pin-cherry is starting, and there's a bit of yellow in the white and yellow birch trees, and tamarack. Colours include pink wild raisin, white Canada burnette, blue chicory, red bull thistles and purple angelica. Choke cherries are black and heavy on the branches, apples are growing red, yellow and luscious, and brown cones are crowning the spruce trees.

• Site 34, French Mountain: Pin-cherries have a few red leaves among the fruit, some sugar maple have branches of red, roadside grasses are yellow and there is a slight yellowing in the birch. Lining the trails are white pearly everlasting, red strawberry plants, red pitcher plants and bake apples, pink lamb-kill, and blue and calico aster. Goldenrod is completely brown and the poison ivy is two-fifths red. Bracken is yellowing and cinnamon ferns have some brown, while bog rosemary has bright red lower leaves and the tufted rushes are yellowing.

• Site 35, Pleasant Bay: The wind-swept hills, still mostly green, are dancing with yellow and brown grasses. Mountain-ash is laden with scarlet berries and the cat-tails are brown. Grand Anse valley has a slight amount of red from the sugar maples and pin-cherries and the spruce are heavy with brown cones. Some yellowing in the yellow birch and the ferns and grasses along the road are mostly yellow.

• Site 36, Cape North: The sides of the mountain are starting to take on an olive green and getting ready to change. There are a few sugar maples starting to turn orange-red and the white birch is showing some yellow.

• Site 39, Long Island: The mountain-ash are turning a brilliant red which contrasts nicely with the many shades of green. Wild raisin fruit is turning an eye-catching pink and dark blue.

• Site 40, Kennington Cove: Cranberry Inlet is a distinctive shade of red and most of the alders, ferns and grasses have turned to brown.

• Site 41, North Side East Bay: In between Eskasoni and Benacadie Pond lies a small lowland of cattails in striking colours of gold and green. Sugar maple, red maple and mountain-ash are turning red.

• Site 42, Irish Cove Scenic Look-off and Provincial Park: This commanding view of the largest breadth of the Bras d'Or Lakes is becoming sprinkled with red in the sugar maple, red maple and pin-cherry.

• Site 45, Marble Mountain: A few of the trees are changing to a faint wash of yellow-green while some red maples are adding splashes of red.

Enjoy taking tea the 1700s way at the Cossit House Museum in Sydney every Sunday afternoon in September and October.

Glimpse living history celebrating the culture of the Gaelic- speaking Scots who settled in Nova Scotia at the Nova Scotia Highland Village in Iona, daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. until Oct. 15.

REGION 4: Marine Drive and Halifax-Dartmouth

Subtle autumn colours are beginning in the flora of the Marine Drive and in the Halifax-Dartmouth area.

• Site 50, Liscomb Mills: Some maple and roadside bushes are showing red, orange and yellow.

• Site 47, Boylston Provincial Park: A small amount of red is beginning to show in the pin-cherry leaves and some of the branches of the red and sugar maple are starting to turn orange- red.

• Site 48, Lundy: A small amount of red-orange is beginning to show in the mountain-ash, and the blueberry leaves are starting to show red-purple. Across the Lundy Barrens are grey granite boulders and the greens of the bog.

• Site 56, Elderbank: A good two-fifths of the trees have turned. Well underway are the reds of the red maples and yellows of the white birch, aspen and white ash. Sugar maple and choke-cherries are starting to turn orange, and the alders and shrubs are browning up. Ferns, grasses and shrubs are beginning to go orange, yellow and brown.

• Site 59, Mount Uniacke: The mixed woods and shoreline of Uniacke Estate Museum Park are just starting to turn red, orange, yellow and brown.

• Site 60, Halifax: Small patches of trees around Frog Pond are starting to change and there are touches of maroon in the wetland maples. Colours in the wild fall flowers, like purple aster and blue and white vetch, are adding a nice touch.

Enjoy fiddle music at the Kirk Logan Fiddling Contest in Middle Musquodoboit on Saturday, Sept. 23.

Come for Inuit/Norse Contact in the High Arctic: Fact or Fiction, a public talk in the Museum of Natural History in Halifax, Wednesday, September 27th at 7:30 p.m.

Visit Millennium Bugs at the Museum of Natural History in Halifax and learn the fascinating story of insects and their relatives through to Oct. 31. Also, view beautiful photos featuring fall colours and autumn foliage by award-winning photographer Stephen Patterson until Oct. 31.

REGION 5: Lighthouse Route

The Lighthouse Route is just beginning to turn from its summer colouring to take on the promise of a beautiful autumn.

• Site 61, New Ross: Ross Farm Museum is reporting a few maples showing signs of red and a bit of yellowing in the birches. Beside the horse-drawn wagon path a few choke-cherries have turned dusky brown.

Stewiacke: Red maple and blueberry bushes are just starting to change.

East River: Mountain-ash is beginning to turn yellow, the willow leaves are wilting and there are tinges of red in the maples.

Tantallon: Low shrubs and grasses are looking a little yellow and a few of the maples are beginning to show some red and yellow.

• Site 65, Wentzells Lake: Some sugar maples are changing to red and a few shrubs and alders are turning yellow.

• Site 66, Milton: The view around the Milton waterfalls is reflecting some red from the maples and yellow from the white ash. The staghorn sumacs are quite lovely.

• Site 68, Kejimkujik National Park: The forested hillsides are still an abundance of greens now spotted with yellow and red from the aspen and maple. At the river's edge the royal ferns are starting to turn a deep brown and the sedge is becoming yellow.

Celebrate the signing of the original land grant in 1790 with Founder's Day Weekend in Hubbards this weekend. There's a big dinner Friday night, graveyard tours and a display of artifacts.

See wool being spun into yarn and make your own sheep pictures from real wool at the Perkins House Museum in Liverpool daily.

For more information please call the toll-free line at 1-877-353- LEAF (5323).