10-08-2025 10:43pm

The Transitioning of the Seasons

Beth Callahan Editor

Nature Close to Home and Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalist Dave Woehr shares monthly naturalist stories.

LEBANON, OH -- It’s early October and thankfully the excessively hot and dry summer is behind us. Temperatures are noticeably cooler, and a recent all-day rain is putting moisture back into the soil. Migratory birds have been moving south for about a month. Soon the hummingbirds will be gone, and I will take my nectar feeder down before freezing nighttime temperatures might cause it to break.

Male hummingbirds are already gone. It is their habit to leave well ahead of the females. A few females are still sipping nectar from the feeder and the garden flowers that are still in bloom.

There are other signs that the autumn transition is underway. Leaves have been slowly changing color and dropping from the trees for several weeks. Peak fall leaf color around here is normally the third week of October. Summer wildflowers are fading from sight except for the asters that will be with us until we get a frost or two.

More of the neighborhood birds have begun venturing out into plain sight now that brood raising is over and fall is in the air. Chickadees, titmice, cardinals, and nuthatches are taking seed from the sunflower heads in the garden as well as from the feeder hanging from a shepherd’s hook outside my picture window.

A pleasant surprise recently has been regular visits from a Red-breasted Nuthatch.

This species is more of a northern Ohio and Canadian bird than its more common White-breasted cousin, which can be found any day of the year here in Warren County.

I’m on the lookout for the first Junco and White-throated Sparrow to appear any day now. It’s that time of year. And it’s one of my favorite times of the year.