October 31, 2025
Wishing you a perfect pumpkin Halloween.
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Halloween Pumpkins
Sighting Of An Elusive Creature
October 30, 2025
A picture not from today but from 2010 when my camera was right there. At lunch today a Bobcat (Lynx rufus) made a quick slink across the lane. Just a swift glimpse, just enough to identify it. No time for the camera. Poof! It was gone!
They’re most often nocturnal or crepuscular, meaning active at dawn and dusk, but it’s not unusual to see them during the day as well. One might be hunting, foraging, or just moving from one resting spot to another.
Delighted with today’s sighting!
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Swainson’s Thrush Migrating Through
October 29, 2025
Leaving its breeding grounds of northern North America, from Alaska and Canada down the Rocky Mountains into parts of the northeastern United States. Now migrating through Virginia, a Swainson’s Thrush (Catharus ustulatus), on its way to its winter home in Mexico, Central America, or South America.
In the first image, notice the olive-brown of its back, and here, another view of the same Thrush showing off its speckled breast.
Still, a long way to go to get to that winter home.
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Waiting For A Chestnut Miracle
October 28, 2025
American Chestnut (Castanea dentata). Once abundant in its native range of the eastern United States, principally in the Appalachian Mountains.
It was at what is now the Bronx Zoo, in the borough of The Bronx, New York City, that the Chestnut Blight (Cryphonectria parasitica) was first discovered in 1904, by 1906 it was estimated that 98 percent of the American Chestnut trees in that borough had been infected.
Today there are very few mature examples of these Chestnut trees surviving in their native range. On rare occasions I see a tree that has been attacked by the blight. Most often the tree will die but the root system will survive to sent up new shoots. This will create a small tree that will repeatedly succumb to the blight and send up new shoots. I have a couple that are doing this here near my cabin. The result of my planting pure American Chestnut burrs.
Scientists have been working on this problem and I’m hoping one of these days they will come up with an answer.
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A Smart Bird In A Family Of Smart Birds
October 27, 2025
The Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata), in the Corvidae family. There are more than 120 species of birds in this family, including Crows, Ravens, Magpies, Nutcrackers, and of course Jays.
Aside from sharing similar traits like having strong beaks and long tails, they also share the trait of being highly intelligent. They will imitate the Red-tailed, and Red-shouldered Hawk calls. Using that talent to warn other Blue Jays that Hawks are nearby, or simply to scare other birds away. Another example of Blue Jay intelligence: In labs they have been observed working with strips of newspaper to pull food from outside their cage to a spot where it can be eaten. And early this year a series of photographs and a detailed description of an event which occurred in October 2021, were published in The Wilson Journal Of Ornithology, describing a Blue Jay breaking off a piece of tree bark and using it to extract a spider from beneath the bark of a White Pine tree (Pinus strobus) in Trumbull County, Ohio.
There is much to be appreciated in this bird which sometimes seems to be a noisy troublemaker!
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Red Maple Decked Out For Autumn
October 26, 2025
The Red Maples (Acer rubrum) are joining in with many of the trees in the woods to create a celebration of autumn. As is often the case, this week is the peak of the spectacular color display. Before long it will look like winter, with shades of black and white leaving only the lushness of evergreens to cheer the forest.
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Eastern Redbud
October 25, 2025
Seed pods of Eastern Redbud (Cercis canadensis) with colorful autumn leaves in the background. As you might guess from those seed pods, the Eastern Redbud tree belongs to the family Fabaceae, the legume or pea family.
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Picking The Perfect Pumpkin
October 24, 2025
Picking the perfect pumpkin is such a weighty decision to make. Your Halloween celebration will be dependent upon your choice. To my mind the one most important part of that decision is what does the stem look like. Does it have an exquisite twist to it? To me, that is the determining factor.
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Standing Beneath A Huge White Oak
October 23, 2025
It’s peak of the magical, colorful season of autumn, and participating in the event is a huge White Oak (Quercus alba) growing alongside the road coming up my mountain. Branches as big as a normal sized tree, twisting and turning to show off its brilliant contribution.
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Bald Eagle
October 22, 2025
Yesterday was a good day! I was out, heading to the Post Office to pick up the mail after yoga class, when I saw it. A Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) soaring above me and my truck.
The size of a Bald Eagle is quite impressive. The wingspan of the female is between 7.5 and 8 feet. The wingspan of male is between 6.5 and 7.5 feet. The length of the female is 35 to 37 inches. The length of the male is 30 to 31 inches. Bald Eagles tend to have regional variations with ones from higher latitudes tending to be larger.
Aside from the size difference, female and male Bald Eagles are nearly identical in color and feather pattern.
The image above is not the one I saw yesterday, but one I got a picture of some time ago.
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