Autumn on Bolin Creek: A Festival of Color photos and story by Dave Otto It’s incredible how much change a week’s time can bring in nature. The leaves had just begun to change color in mid-October, but during the third week an incredible transformation of the woodlands occurred with the maples and dogwood turning brilliant red, the beech and nut trees turning bright yellow and a myriad of other colors bursting out of the leafy canopy like fireworks on the fourth of July! From subtle shades of yellow and orange to vibrant swathes of red and purple, the woodlands exploded in color. I’m not sure what unleashed this festival of color, although it rained hard all day on Tuesday and then cooled down later in the week. Saturday dawned warm and sunny so I walked upstream with camera in hand. The rains earlier in the week satisfied the thirsty land and replenished the creek which was flowing and chuckling with gusto. Seven minutes upstream from my house is the rapids where the creek narrows between a rocky bluff and the bank. A flat stone above the narrows provides a wonderful place to sit and listen to the symphony of the water and meditate on the beauty of nature. Ten minutes upstream from the rapids is another special place where the creek has cut a miniature gorge through the ground and descends quickly over a smooth rocky shelf. I call this the “cascades” as there is a series of tiny falls as the creek rushes down over the rocks. After rains, the cascades are incredibly beautiful. I can easily spend an hour there, watching the water splash joyously over the stones, forming fascinating patterns of foam in the pool at the base. As I stood mesmerized taking pictures of the cascades, a family with two young children wandered up to the bank at the foot of the cascades. The children crawled carefully across a fallen log and walked up through the cascades with buckets in hand. “What are you collecting?” I asked their parents. “We are picking up trash”, they answered and proudly showed me what they had found. There were a few plastic soda bottles and snack wrappers, but not very much because the hikers and bikers who frequent the creek corridor are usually considerate and leave little trash. It was reassuring to learn that this family every few weeks collects trash along the creek, teaching the children at an early age to respect nature and to actively contribute to preserving this treasure. I took more than 300 pictures during a four-hour walk. Many of these pictures are in this album so that you can accompany me on the walk. With the colorful leaves, the woodlands were a joy to see. Reflections of the foliage in the creek, brimming with the recent rains, provided a pageant of ever-changing images, as if looking through a kaleidoscope at the soul of autumn, an endless series of impressionist paintings dancing on the sparkling water. I have massaged these images—not creating something de novo, but pushing, pulling and saturating colors present in the leaves and light reflecting from the water. Come now and enjoy the walk!! FLORA · TRAVELS · EVENTS · ANIMALS · BOLIN CREEK · PEOPLE · INSECTS · FUNGI HOME · ABOUT · GALLERY · CONTACT © DAVE OTTO PHOTOS · 1533 PATHWAY DR. · CARRBORO, NC 27510 · EMAIL DAVE