4 degrees and overcast at the start
Bird Highlight: Hooded Merganser
Hooded Mergansers
Botany Highlight: Speckled Alder
Speckled Alder (Alnus incana)
Species list: double-crested cormorant, mute swan, Canada goose, mallard, gadwall, American wigeon, northern shoveler, common goldeneye, long-tailed duck, bufflehead, hooded merganser, ring-billed gull, rock pigeon, black-capped chickadee, house sparrow, northern cardinal, American tree sparrow. (17 species)
Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellata)
Northern Shoveler (male)
Gadwall
Trembling Aspen (Populus tremuloides)
American Wigeon
Blue Beech seeds (Carpinus caroliniana)
Ring-billed Gulls
Bufflehead (male)
Miles Hearn
FALL POETRY
Here was October, here
Was ruddy October, the old harvester,
Wrapped like a beggared sachem in a coat
Of tattered tanager and partridge feathers.
–Stephen Vincent Benet (1898–1943