Autumn...finally!

Autumn tiptoed through our doorways this morning, glancing fearfully over its shoulder in case summer was about to tackle it and pull it back. And it should well have been nervous. Temperatures have still been in the 90s this week and the high today is supposed to be 90 degrees F. 

Maybe that doesn't sound too bad, but the humidity makes that feel like it is 97 degrees. To step outside, as I just did for about thirty minutes, is to quickly realize that autumn has not exactly taken hold yet.

Still, the calendar says it's here and there are some autumnal signs in the land. Some of the leaves are beginning to turn. 

Now, we don't get a lot of fall color in our leaves here, but a few trees, like the sycamore pictured above, will give us a bit of the feeling of fall. (Full disclosure: That picture was actually taken a couple of years ago and it was in late October when most of our fall colors, if we get any, make their appearance.) 

Crape myrtles, too, offer some reds and yellows in their fading leaves.

Crape myrtle leaves.

And the muscadine leaves in my backyard do get quite colorful before they drop.

Monarch butterfly sunning itself on the yellowing muscadine leaves.

Besides the changing leaves, there are other signs of autumn, of course. The fall bird migration has been in progress for weeks now. The most visible sign of it in my yard has been the hummingbirds. There's been a lot of activity lately as Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, Black-chinned Hummingbirds, and Rufous Hummingbirds pass through. 

If we are lucky, some of the Rufous hummers will choose to stay with us through the winter, like this female shown perched on the crook holding one of my feeders last winter.

So, even though the signs are faint and often fleeting, I have it on good authority that autumn has arrived, finally. Our weather forecasters even promise us milder temperatures in the 80s, and on one day in the 70s, over the next ten days. I'm going to hold them to that.