Foliage beginning to color; state getting inquiries from abroad

Sugar maple leaves on this tree beside the East Dixfield Post Office have already started changing color although peak foliage change in Western Maine isn't expected until the first or second week in October.

Buy a print

- Terry Karkos/Sun Journal

RUMFORD — Chlorophyll has already started draining from some sugar maples, and yellow and paper birches, leaving noticeable splashes of orange, red and yellow leaves in the woods.

Leaves on hardwood forests atop hills in Western Maine and needles on tamarack trees lining sections of Route 2 from Farmington to Bethel are also starting to lose their green hues.

But despite the early changes, the foliage season is still tracking toward normal, Gail Ross, Maine foliage spokeswoman with the Maine Department of Conservation, said in a Wednesday report.

“We’re still on track to see peak conditions up north the last two weeks of September, with the rest of the state peaking from north to south the first weeks of October,” Ross said.

Each year, she begins monitoring foliage change in late summer.

“So far, the foliage season appears to be a typical one, though the Maine Forest Service is reporting that some yellow and paper birches have been stressed by the hot summer weather and leaves are beginning to fall off.”

Ross also handles numerous inquiries from leaf peepers across New England, the nation, and internationally throughout the year. As of Wednesday, she'd received 338 inquiries, the first of which came last November.

“We just got an e-mail from a doctor in Israel, and I’ve heard from someone in India,” Ross said, also pointing out the e-mail she received in Spanish from a man who said he lived in Grenada, Spain.

Of the 338 inquiries about this autumn, 126 have come from out of state, mostly people from Texas and Florida, she said.

The number of inquiries is “a bit more than previous years, because I think people were concerned when they started hearing that the leaves were turning early,” Ross said.

Starting on Sept. 15 and continuing through Oct. 13, ardent leaf peepers can keep up to date on the status of Maine's fall color through regular foliage reports.

Now in their 52nd year, the weekly Maine foliage reports from Maine Forest Service forest rangers will be available each Wednesday.

The reports, which began being compiled in 1959, will be available online at the Maine Foliage website: www.maine.gov/doc/foliage/.

The site's fall foliage map is assembled from data collected by the rangers, who now use personal digital assistants “so they're actually sending their foliage pictures through their PDAs,” Ross said.

The first picture — a shot of the Horse Mountain trail head in Baxter State Park by District Ranger Joe Mints — is already posted on the site.

Not only will foliage followers find information on the Maine Foliage website, they can also now share their experiences on the department's new Facebook page.

That can be found by searching for “Maine Fall Foliage” on Facebook, which is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them.

Ross encouraged fans to visit the page often and post comments and photos, specifically pictures of Maine's foliage.

“In past years, some of the photographs have been unusually beautiful,” she said.

For information on visiting Maine and travel plans, go to: www.VisitMaine.com. For additional foliage information, contact Ross at 287-5266 or gale.ross@maine.gov.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com