A Year in the Forest

  Clear and cool this morning.  I got out just as the sun was coming up and it was light enough. It is nice to see and hear the forest waking up.  I took pictures of something I have noticed and never found documented.  Ice crystals, like delicate little

(sculptures,  form on the ground, usually around a small plant stalk.  They are almost as beautiful as mushrooms. 

It has been wet for the past several days and with daylight savings time I have not been able to get in the woods much.  I have decided to move my walk to first thing in the morning and I did that today.  We have had several days of wet and unlike the city the forest has soaked it up with hardly a puddle remaining.   This morning it is dry again and I was struck by the colors of the forest.  It is mostly browns with the occasional bright red to catch your attention.  There are patches of stark white which are usually only bird poop.  I did notice the squirrels still active and saw one go in a hole in a tree I suspected was an animal home.  He sat there with his head out watching me till I got close enough to photograph him and of course then he retreated into the hole.  I have noticed that the animals in the forest are starting to treat me different.  I am able to get closer without spooking them, all except the deer that is.  Yesterday I had a deer in my yard and walked about 5 yards from it, before it ran off.  In the woods, I cannot get closer than about 75 yards before the deer run off.  Of course that is a good thing since it is deer season.

I saw an article today where people in New York state are reporting seeing a cougar/mountain lion and even had a good picture of one.  The government still maintains that there are no cougars/mountain lions east of the Mississippi.  Hmm.

The buzzards made for quite a display.  It is not evident from the pictures but the local crows did not like the buzzards around and were cawing and harassing them.

As you can see the leaves are almost all gone now.  Its been warm and dry for the past week.  The dry leaves are slick to walk on.  Daylight Savings time is in effect and I havn’t had much time to spend in the woods.

      You can see a little of the progression of the falling leaves in the pictures from the last three days.  It has been unusually warm and dry here.  It seems as if the leaves falling are getting more pronounced every day.  Not much new happening.  The birds, squirrels and chipmunks are very active, much more active than during the summer months, I guess preparing for winter.  I have only seen the deer once in the last three days.