The colours keep going, and going, and going! Part 1
Those windless moments are always a treat, the reflections, the calm, the colours! While many trees are bare some are just changing, what a wild year! I wandered down the road yesterday, it’s quiet again, sigh…lovely:) No dodging drivers or small talk, I am a curmudgeon;) Ha! Do you know the word for a female curmudgeon is termagant? Learn something new every day;) It’s hard to believe we are halfway through October, where do the days and nights go? Now, that muskrat knew how to pick some background colours!
The insects are winding down but they are still out there! Quite a few Small Milkweed bugs, ensconced in the milkweed, where else? Ha! Small milkweed bugs’ primary sources of nutrients are flower nectar and milkweed seeds. If these food sources are limited, they may feed on other insects. The bumblebees have been curling up at night in the yellow mums, sometimes wresting another bee over who gets that flower! Not any other colour, just the yellow ones, everyone has their favourite colour apparently! Even got a Green Sweat bee (?) on them as well as a very very green Katydid! Also a wild looking wasp with a curly tail! Who knew? A Pelecinid Wasp!
Groot was very excited at finding a few frogs when it warmed up this week! Way easier to follow than those pesky birds! Fun to stalk in the tall grass! I kept an eye on them so no frogs were actually hurt! Rocket sits under the bird feeder and occasionally makes a leap into the deep leaves after a Junco, unsuccessfully I might add!
I was excited to hear the pair of Trumpeter swans come back, hard to mistake that honking! So nice to see this pair! They usually show up on the same day or close every year! Such a beautiful couple! Never any cygnets so they must be retired;)
They ran off a few geese and took over our neighbours swim platform. They paddled over for a quick visit when I went down to the dock and sat. I had some oats they ate out of my hand, damn they are big, before they swam off in search of greens!
Such beautiful birds, they take my breath away being that close to them! Check out that red lipstick line, or is billstick? Ha!
A Sharp shinned hawk came by one afternoon, everything suddenly became very very quiet, little birds scattered only the blue jays were yelling at it, then a crow joined in. It buzzed the crow and sent it scurrying before it moved on down the lake! Always something!
It’s LLB time…little brown birds, and fancy little tuxedo birds. The White Throated Sparrows and the Dark-eyed Juncos are back! Taking turns with the Chickadees for food. I love the yellow eyebrows on the White Throated sparrows.
A very bright visitor made an appearance, no need for Fall background leaves! A juvenile male Northern Cardinal! His crest isn’t quite there yet and he has that baby fluffiness to him! We had a male last Winter and I spied him at the end of our road and Long Lake road this Spring so looks like he found a mate! Hopefully this youngster will stick around! Very shy! Had to push the screen aside and sneakily take his picture through the window! Ya do what ya gotta do;)
I’ve been trying to work on some props for my upcoming “Backyard Birding” talk for the camera club. Merle at the dump brought forth a lovely elaborate Fall table decoration/container of some sort, a fancy seed holder he proclaimed when he heard what I was looking for! So right! Now to collect some nice white paper birch branches and winterberry holly for backdrops! So far the Chickadees and the Purple Finches are cooperating wonderfully!
The Red Bellied female woodpecker has been around a bit and of course the blue jays! Very very vocal! The suet block belongs to the Red Bellied Woodpecker…she says so anyway!
The Downy’s and the Hairy’s wait their turn;)
and the goldfinches…like little flying bits of sunshine!
I miss the mushrooms this year! Down at the barn I came across some type of oyster mushroom growing on a cut Manitoba maple, and in among the squash on the manure pile some others were growing. Not much here at all except for the amazing display of Chicken of the woods that have hardened on an old maple! The trumpet lichen and mosses reappeared after some rain as well, a welcome sight, now for more rain. The swamp has dropped to below the level of the culvert, something I have not seen before.
We are hoping for more rain this weekend! Make it so! I’ll sign off here, stay tuned for those morning mists and walking down the road! I’ll leave you with a blast of colours, so many still hanging on, many trees bare, what a year! Saludos amigos!
