Looking up through red oak leaves

A good time to locate specific trees. The tamarack are easy to find right now - they are brilliant gold from top to bottom. The red oak are one of the few trees that are still hanging on to brassy red and ochre leaves. The trees I was looking for today are buckthorn. They are a particularly nasty invasive species. The smaller branches terminate in a thorn. The black berries were once used as a purgative (think what you take before a colonoscopy) but are now considered too strong for humans - though they are still used in veterinary practices. Buckthorn is the only deciduous tree still green this late into the season so is easy to locate. There were four trees by the edge of the old forest. I spent some time breaking every branch I could reach. That should be enough for me to locate them later and cut the trees down. I looked around them and found a myriad of little ones coming up. Those I pulled out by their roots. My efforts probably won't stop them from coming up again next year. Could use poison but I'm loathe to use it in the woods. Since they only seem to come up at the edge of the woods I'll just check every year about this time for trees w/ green leaves.