Again It Was Cone Year

Indian Summer's lazy, blue smoke-haze settled low upon the purple hills. Dream-like peace and lassitude pervaded the magic September air. Birches were flaunting only a trim of gold, and osiers showed only an elusive tinge of magenta. Yet the coming heavy harvest among the conifers had already begun on pine flats shelving back from the curving, incredible blue of the swift Kootenai.

“Look out!” shouted my friend, jumping nervously in apprehension at the sound of another heavy thud close behind on the needled forest floor. I was many rods away, yet it seemed to him that I had playfully approached, concealed myself, and was heaving weighty missiles whenever his back turned in my direction. Suddenly a triple cluster of fast-ripening cones, half hidden in the long, redolent needle-tufts of the yellow pine, just missed his shoulder and fell forcefully in front of him. A provident red squirrel, high in the towering ponderosa pine above and unmindful of autumns seductive summer, was energetically clipping off nutladen clusters to enlarge his winter stores. Months later, high piles of cone scales and cores, heaped upon snow-blanketed stump or log in bordering fir depths, would testify to the chickaree's foresight and feasting.

Unlike my friend, now being pelted by the bountiful conifer crop, he was not forgetting that again it was cone year; he must make the most of it. Soon frosty October nights freshened the languid valley air. Sun-filled days turned crystal-clear. Tamaracks and aspens flashed sudden gold. A constant patter of falling leaves, as of raindrops stepping lightly, was heard all day in the nearby birchwood. Out in the open, sunny, pine parks the ripening cone crop again dramatically claimed attention. To meet the rollicking chickadee-nuthatch-woodpecker band is common experience; but in this second week of October I happened upon a veritable holiday convention of the clan, joined there by dozens of other feathered friends—crossbills, kinglets and purple finches.

The usual infectious enthusiasm of chickadees prevailed. Bright-eyed, carefree black-caps swung acrobatically in the long-needled crowns of young yellow pines that bore a first heavy cone-crop. Mountain chickadees—few are ordinarily observed at this low elevation, and seldom early in the season—were already their numerous and sprightly companions. Both species were delving excitedly into open cones, carrying the plump seeds at once to crotch or limb. Here, twisting off papery seed-wings, they hurriedly hammered apart the thin shells to reach plump kernels within. Being skilled insect hunters rather than specialists in nut-cracking, even this light task demanded mallet-like blows.

By: davidbunch

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