Visit 8: 11/15/2011 12:00-13:00

Happy deer season!

I wasn't expecting good deer luck today, in part because I went at noon and in part because it's the first day of deer gun season. So it was a surprise when I finally got some pictures of a deer!

But we'll get to that. I'm pretty geeked about my adventure today.

Let's start with the basics:

11/15/2011
12:00-13:00
~60F
Weather: Sunny and warm with a light breeze

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Silent Observation (12:00-12:15):

Silent Observation Location (red)

Today I watched robins bathe in Fleming Creek. They were everywhere! At one point I counted 20 along the bank and in the trees, and had a sense that there were even more that I didn't see. I'm right near Station #1 -- "The land and water connection". The robins seem to be enjoying the nice weather. They splash at the edge of the creek one or two at a time. Occasionally a new bird flies over and siplaces a bather. Sometimes the bather flies off, other times they seem to "wrestle" first, puffing out their feathers and engaging one another up close.

Robin bathing.

A second robin flies in. 

Two robins bathing.

A buck just walked by. Probably 8 or 10 points, tall. He saw me lift up my camera and hurried off. The birds are gone now too, but there's a lot of noise in the trees.

I first see the buck stepping out of the woods on the far bank.

The buck sees me too, and seems apprehensive.

He decides to head off.

I watch him walk away.

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After the deer left, the birds did come back. They were all over the place today, mostly robins but some small finch-like silver and black ones too. I saw the usual cast of characters: fox squirrels and red squirrels, a lot of poison ivy, and the honeysuckle (which doesn't have as many berries these days as it used to). I also noticed a lot of cut trees along the path, honeysuckle and some that appeared to have been dead and removed. They must have been working on a project recently because they are all just piled up alongside the path throughout Parker Mill Park and on the HGP Trail.

The water was still a little stinky by the railroad bridge. I got a little video of the foam piling up, too:

Foam on the surface of the water.

Besides all that, I saw a lot of different and new fungi specimens. The one on the dead tree by the railroad bridge has sort of shirveled up -- I'm not sure why. I noticed some new ones at the base of another tree (possibly an oak but I still have trouble telling without any leaves to go by), and some growing out from between two ash trees.

Shriveled fungus from last time.

A new fungi growing at the base of a tree.

More fungi growing between two dead ash trees.

Another specimen - some kind of polypore?

On the topic of dead trees, I saw one today that had an interesting texture, so I snapped a picture. When I looked closer, I realized it had tons of tiny little holes in it. I'm going to have to do some searching to find out what those are.

"Textured" tree.

Tree up close -- see the dots?

This is what it looks like...

I took a couple of shots of some other interesting stuff: evidence of spiders on an oak tree, some green moss growing on a stump and a dead chunk of ash that caught the sun in a way that really showed off its damage.

Little spider nests on tree.

Ash tree in the sun.

Some growth on a dead tree branch.

Some kind of moss/plant growing on a stump.

One of the few plants still growing from the ground. Not sure what kind it is.

I also caught a picture (sort of) of a new bird (or at least its back end).

Maybe a pine warbler or cedar waxwing? Similar to cedar waxwing in color, but I think it's too small.

When I got back to the parking lot, I was surprised to see a butterfly sunning itself. It looks a lot like an Eastern Comma. So, I got a couple pictures of that as well.

Looks a lot like an Eastern Comma -- see the comma?

All in all, a quick visit but a productive one!