8 degrees and rain at the start

Bird Highlight: Northern Mockingbird

Northern Mockingbird

Botany Highlight: Red Osier Dogwood

Red-osier Dogwood (Cornus sericea)

Red-osier Dogwood (Cornus sericea)

Species list: red-necked grebe, double-crested cormorant, Canada goose, mallard, American black duck, gadwall, American wigeon, northern shoveler, bufflehead, greater scaup, spotted sandpiper, greater black-backed gull, herring gull, ring-billed gull, downy woodpecker, black-capped chickadee, brown creeper, northern mockingbird, American robin, golden-crowned kinglet, house sparrow, northern cardinal, song sparrow.  (23 species)

American Wigeon

Mallard (female)

Song Sparrow

Ring-billed Gull

Dryad’s Saddle

Miles Hearn

                                      NATURE POETRY

Delicious autumn!
My very soul is wedded to it,
and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth
seeking the successive autumns.

– George Eliot (1819–80)