Ruffed grouse broods begin to break up / Native Americans roasted the rootstocks of false Solomon’s seal and ate them. They are said to taste like a mild parsnip. Look for the berries, which are now a translucent red / Luna moth larvae are dropping from their feeding trees to search for a suitable place to spin a cocoon in which the pupa will spend the winter / Virginia creeper and poison ivy leaves are red, attracting migrant birds to their ripe berries

Look for groundhogs eating voraciously to fatten up quickly for winter. Too much fat earlier in the summer would have made them easy prey / Warbler migration is underway, but their confusing autumn plumage and relative silence make identification difficult for most of us / Asters, in colors ranging from white, blue, and pink to deep purple, are blooming at the edges of fields / Tiger beetle larvae spend the winter in vertical burrows dug in sandy soil

Chipmunks, squirrels, deer, blue jays, and grouse all eat hazelnuts, which are more nutritious than acorns / Swainson’s thrushes are migrating at night / Fluffy white stuff among shrubs and low trees might be the plumed seeds of virgin’s bower, a vine of moist areas / Monarch butterflies are heading south, fueling up on thistles and asters as they go / The tattered holes made by maple leaf-cutter larvae sometimes make a mess of sugar maples at this time of year

Some blackpoll warblers that breed in Alaska come east across Canada and pass through New England before heading across open ocean all the way to Venezuela. They are most often observed in coastal areas / Some blue jays go south for the winter while others don’t, but food shortages may send them all packing / Tree roots continue to grow. They’ll grow all winter, unless the ground freezes solidly / Kinglets are back, and red shouldered hawks are leaving