We don’t see deer too often on these walks so it was fun to have one run across our path:

Many wildflowers were in bloom on this 15 degree, cloudy morning including Yellow Lady’s Slipper:

Gay-wings or Fringed Polygala is another lovely one:

Other botany:

This morning’s group:

Park scenes:

Species list: Canada goose, killdeer, ring-billed gull, hairy woodpecker, pileated woodpecker, eastern kingbird, willow flycatcher, eastern pewee, tree swallow, blue jay, American crow, black-capped chickadee, house wren, gray catbird, American robin, cedar waxwing, black-throated green warbler, yellow warbler, American redstart, common yellowthroat, pine warbler, red-winged blackbird, brown-headed cowbird, Baltimore oriole, orchard oriole,  northern cardinal, indigo bunting, American goldfinch, field sparrow, field sparrow, song sparrow.  (31 species)

NATURE POETRY

The Mowing

This is the voice of high midsummer’s heat.
The rasping vibrant clamour soars and shrills
O’er all the meadowy range of shadeless hills,
As if a host of giant cicadae beat
The cymbals of their wings with tireless feet,
Or brazen grasshoppers with triumphing note
From the long swath proclaimed the fate that smote
The clover and timothy-tops and meadowsweet.

The crying knives glide on; the green swath lies.
And all noon long the sun, with chemic ray,
Seals up each cordial essence in its cell,
That in the dusky stalls, some winter’s day,
The spirit of June, here prisoned by his spell,
May cheer the herds with pasture memories. – Sir Charles G. D. Roberts

Miles Hearn