The eastern phoebe is the flycatcher most at home near human habitations, building its mossy nests under bridges and around summer cottages and outbuildings.

The phoebe has a diagnostic habit of wagging its tail as if stirring porridge with it.

Phoebes spent the winter in the south-eastern United States and northern Mexico.

There is no “western” phoebe but Black Phoebes and Say’s Phoebes are found in western North America.

Other birds:

Species list: mallard, hairy woodpecker, downy woodpecker, eastern phoebe, blue jay, American crow, black-capped chickadee, white-breasted nuthatch, red-breasted nuthatch, ruby-crowned kinglet, American robin, house sparrow, European starling, northern cardinal, American goldfinch, song sparrow. (16 species)

Park scenes:

St. Andrew’s Cemetery:

Today’s group:

Some botany:

Arrow-leaved Aster looks very much like Heart-leaved Aster:

The best way to tell them apart is to have a look at the leaf stem which is narrow in Heart-leaved and “winged” in Arrow-leaved:

NATURE POETRY

O golden month! How high thy gold is heaped!
The yellow birch-leaves shine like bright coins strung
On wands, the chestnut’s yellow pennons tongue
To eery wind its harvest challenge. Steeped
In yellow, still lie fields where wheat was reaped.      – Helen Hunt Jackson (1830–85) 

Miles Hearn