Take Three Thursday - Cones of Pine

In an effort to notice more of the ordinary in my life, I have decided to share what I have noticed this week in Take Three Thursday.   The idea is to take photos that are linked some how; by theme, by colour, by date, by moment,  by points of view. There is no formal link in but please feel free to join in. What have you noticed this week? 

Have a peek at what others have found this week:

Maggie at: FarmersWifeDayByDay  

This week as I have wandered about, I noticed that the evergreens, white pines & some maples have been producing an abundance of cones.  Some of the evergreens have so many that from a distance it looks as though the tree is dying.  But it does seem that I was not the only one noticing as there was an article in our local paper about this written by a director of the Arboretum at the University of Guelph.  This abundant production of cones is called Masting.  "trees will try to outsmart the seed predators like squirrels every once in a while producing these huge crops that there's no way the squirrels could possibly eat them all & that way there are going to be some left over to actually sprout & grow. Once sprouted they're pretty delicate & fragile & have to survive being eaten by deer & rabbits". The director went on to say "the abundance of seeds being produced could be intensified by last year's drought & the tree evolutionary survival mode kicked in this year."

brown spots throughout the tree are cones all the way down the tree

Mother Nature you are simply brilliant & amazing even though right now you seem to be having mood swings ... I'll say no more.