Along the edge of wetlands, crimson bleeds into maple leaves in late August, reminding us that autumn is just around the corner. The season creeps in with colors — golden grass, burnt orange ferns and bright red berries.
It’s a time when mushrooms burst forth from duff and decaying trees, adding to the spectrum with caps of tangerine and buttery yellow.
Just yesterday, I found a bright violet coral mushroom. Yet somehow, I walked past it without noticing. It was only on my way back along the trail that it caught my attention. That’s the funny (and fun) thing about nature: it’s so complex that much of it escapes our notice until we pause and focus.
So this autumn, I challenge you to slow down to take notice of all of the amazing hues that emerge in the wilderness. You may discover something you’ve never seen before. And I have a game that can help.
The game is simple, kind of like “I Spy.” It was introduced to me by Hazel Stark, co-owner of the Maine Outdoor School based in Milbridge, and it’s great to play with kids.
Basically, you go outside with the intention of finding specific colors. And to do that, you need to have some references. Paint swatches are great for this. You could also carry crayons, markers or colored pencils as your color samples. The idea is to match those colors with things you find in nature, whether it’s fungi, flowers or turning fall leaves.
As with many activities, keeping track of your progress can be rewarding. For this, you could simply take notes and check off each color as you find it. Or you could snap photos of all that you discover. Or sketch in a journal.
You’ll notice I did not say “collect the items.” No, no. In most cases, unless you’re foraging, it’s best to leave nature as you find it, undisturbed and for others to enjoy. This is a great lesson to share with kids. In fact, during the game, you could sneak in some education about the seven Leave No Trace principles for outdoor recreationists.
You could make the game into a friendly competition. The person who finds the most colors in nature is the winner. It could be a timed game, or not. You could all try to find the same colors, or you could divide the colors randomly amongst you.
While it’s an incredibly simple game, it will encourage you to look at the world around you through a different lens. A sort of treasure hunt, it’s fun for all ages. Plus, it causes you to focus and engage in the world around you, much like the practice of forest bathing.
When searching for colors in nature, don’t forget to look closely at the world of insects and other creepy crawlies. Some of Maine’s largest dragonflies are bright blue, and they stick around well into the fall. Beetles and caterpillars also display some amazing colors.
Of course, Maine stunning fall foliage will help you out. In addition to turning orange, yellow and red, leaves can display shades of peach, pink and purple, even blue.
The transition leaves go through in the fall is a chemical process. Throughout the summer, leaves are green because they’re filled with chlorophyll, a pigment that absorbs the energy of sunlight and turns it into food. In the fall, leaves stop producing chlorophyll, and as the remaining pigment breaks down, other pigments within the leaves — yellows and oranges — are revealed, according to a bulletin published by the University of Maine Cooperative Extension.
But that’s not all. At the same time, in some plant species, pigments called anthocyanins are formed, which can make leaves appear red, purplish or blue.
Of all the colors in the rainbow, blue is one of the toughest ones to find in nature, in my opinion. A few flowers, such as bluets and forget-me-nots, are light blue. And sometimes you can find blue on the wings of butterflies. Painted ladies, for example, are out in late summer and early fall, and they have shimmery blue spots on their hind underwings. But on a typical walk through the woods, I don’t usually see blue, unless you count the sky above.
Green is easy, so I challenge you to find specific shades of green — mint, lime, sage, emerald. You can make this game fairly challenging, if you’re picky about finding exact matches.
If you enjoy posting photos on social media, this might be a fun exercise for that. Go out and find the rainbow in nature, then post a photo series online. That’s the kind of content I like to see on Instagram and Facebook. That and cute animal photos.
My current fixation with colors has to do with a book I’m reading. A friend lent me, “An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us,” by Ed Yong. The book explores how different animals, including humans, experience the world through their senses. There’s an entire chapter about how we sense colors, and it’s fascinating.
So as the landscape transforms this fall, I’ll be paying close attention to the many colors that emerge. And maybe I’ll even play the color game with my nieces. I wonder who would be more enthusiastic about it — me or them?
