Fall Foliage and Fallen Bat

I find it strange that I spent two days this week working in forests with all the range of autumn colors that a forest can offer, and didn't take a single photo.  On Tuesday I even traveled deep into the Appalachian mountains of eastern Kentucky, and admired a florescent sunset over golden forest peaks and smokey valleys, and never snapped a shot.  

But this morning, on an office day, I found myself wandering the parking lot giving the few scraggly trees that stick up out of the pavement some much deserved attention.  These scrawny trees are really putting on a colorful display, which changes my entire early morning work mood.  

Normally, when I critique of the office parking lot, this is the image that I focus on.  Especially on a grumpy Monday morning when I'm not wearing my rose tinted glasses.  Uhg.  Cars on cracked pavement, utility lines, buildings devoid of architectural interest, and the icing on the cake - dumpsters.  I park near the dumpsters every day.  This is a fitting way to begin the work week, right?  

But today, even the normally unnoticed Bradford pear near the front door was a multicolored bouquet.  No rose colored glasses needed, this tree is beautiful.  

And right across the street, standing out against the normally unremarkable warehouses, is a red tree.  Not red-ish, or tipped with red, or mostly red, but a solid, fingernail polish red, tree.  It's perfect.  And to set it off, a green pine tree grows behind it adding nice contrast.  Sometimes it's nice to remember that I don't have to travel far to see lovely things, I just have to remember to look up.    

I may not have taken photos of the autumn mountains, but we did see an interesting thing yesterday while walking through the forest - a silver haired bat lying on he ground.  It's been several years since I caught a silver haired bat while working at night, and I have never seen one in the light of day, so this was quite exciting to see.  You can see in the photo why they are called silver haired bats.  It looks like he had is fur bleached on the tips.  

This is what the bat looked like when we found it.  It was just lying on the ground with it's wings tucked.  I thought it must be dead because it's not normal for these bats to be on the ground.  I didn't have any gloves with me, and I didn't want to pick up a bat that was acting abnormally anyway, since it could be sick, but when I poked at it, it hissed and spread it's wings.  I couldn't see any injuries, and it seemed alert, but didn't fly.  It's a bat mystery.