Col Sam Smith Park, November 23, 2017

2 degrees and overcast at the start

Bird Highlight: American Wigeon

American Wigeon

Botany Highlight: Witch Hazel

Witch Hazel (Hamamelis virginiana)

Species list: red-necked grebe, mute swan, Canada goose, mallard, gadwall, American wigeon, greater scaup, bufflehead, long-tailed duck, red-breasted merganser, American kestrel, greater black-backed gull, herring gull, ring-billed gull, rock pigeon, short-eared owl, downy woodpecker, blue jay,  European starling, house sparrow,  northern cardinal, American goldfinch.  (22 species)

Brome Grass (Bromus enermis)

Oriental Bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus)

Red Pine (Pinus resinosa)

Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca)

Cat-tail (Typha angustifolia)

Choke Cherry (Prunus virginiana)

Bufflehead (male)

evidence of Beaver

 

Miles Hearn

                                                              FALL POETRY

The green elm with the one great bough of gold

Lets leaves into the grass slip, one by one, —

The short hill grass, the mushrooms small milk-white,

Harebell and scabious and tormentil,

That blackberry and gorse, in dew and sun,

Bow down to; and the wind travels too light

To shake the fallen birch leaves from the fern;

The gossamers wander at their own will.

At heavier steps than birds’ the squirrels scold.

The rich scene has grown fresh again and new

As Spring and to the touch is not more cool

Than it is warm to the gaze; and now I might

As happy be as earth is beautiful,

Were I some other or with earth could turn

In alternation of violet and rose,

Harebell and snowdrop, at their season due,

And gorse that has no time not to be gay.

But if this be not happiness, — who knows?

Some day I shall think this a happy day,

And this mood by the name of melancholy

Shall no more blackened and obscured be.

–Edward Thomas (1878–1917

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