It looks like we’ll soon be having a bumper crop of wild apples. (By “wild,” we mean the apples that drop from the many abandoned-and-no-longer-cultivated apple trees growing here.)
These apples can play a critical part in wildlife preparing for and surviving the winter: bear getting ready to hibernate, deer filling out new coats for winter, fox, coyote, rabbits, and small rodents. They’re part of the fall and winter diets of crows, catbirds, seagulls, and many more birds.
Most of the wild apples taken by humans around here seem to be pressed into cider. (Brooklin, Maine)