Salmon Run or Why I Love Fall

I have never been able to explain my love of autumn.

Yesterday morning, while having my coffee on the deck, I watched the sunrise touch the peaks with gold as the light crept down the slopes across the lake.
The mountains are now rimmed with the flaming colour of the larch trees as they prepare to shed their needles for winter's hibernation.
I can hear the honking of the geese as they wing their way north... they will fly north in the fall when searching for food while on their journey south.
The leaves are piling up in the yard and I can now see all the way to the road.
I've been busy in the kitchen stocking, storing, making preserves, spaghetti sauce and baking pumpkin pies.

The true sign of fall in my neighbourhood is when the Kokanee salmon begin their run upstream to their spawning grounds.
Our creek is directly across the road and, if we had a larger property, it could be considered as running through our front yard...
I spent quite a while this afternoon sitting on the creek bank watching those amazing fish struggle doggedly against the current, driven entirely by instinct.
Their skin has turned a bright red and their lower jaws have grown outwards and upwards in the typical way of a spawning salmon.
Kokanee are a fresh water fish, so they never make it as far as the ocean after hatching, preferring large lakes in which to live out their four year life cycle.

We are being visited by different kinds of birds as they pass through on their way south and their unique calls are carried upon the tangy autumn breezes.
Bear sightings are more common now, as they hurriedly search for sustenance to bring them through hibernation.
The deer are beginning to congregate, although only the does and fawns are prevalent - it is hunting season and the bucks know to remain hidden at this time of year.

Now that I think of it, I may just have explained my love of autumn!