Persephone Period

According to the VA Pilot's gardening column, "Horticulture has the term “Persephone Period”: the time of year when days have less than 10 hours of sunlight...With fewer than 10 hours of light, crop growth more or less stops." And that was today, which I confirmed by checking sunrise and sunset times.  The Solomon's seal was fading toward dormancy. 

Anyway, I went a bit overboard with the camera.  The creek was rumpled, making reflections into abstracts.  A pine warbler woke up early to get a share of suet.  Chickadees, titmice, and house finches competed for seeds and a titmouse occasionally settled for a barkbutter ball.  

I took quite a few pictures of the feeder perch trying to catch one of the speedy brown-headed nuthatches.  Yellow rumped warblers showed up for lunch but the pine warbler stuck to the suet.  Downy woodpeckers needed a lot of suet too.  

Turtles basked in the chilly sunshine.  And I saw the first hooded mergansers of the season!  The pied-bill grebe returned later in the afternoon.  And of course there were mallards. 

In the middle of the afternoon crows gathered, cursing and screaming.  I looked where they were looking but the vegetation was too dense.  Finally they drove the hawk out into the open.  Its red tail was obvious and besides, it was BIG.  When it exploded into flight, I missed it.  

 

Clear and cold

A pine warbler tried the barkbutter balls.  Canada geese disturbed the morning reflections.  Last night's wind dumped trash in the creek. It also pealed twigs bare of a lot of colorful leaves. 

A yellow rumped warbler hopped all around under the feeders but vegetation kept photo bombing my pictures.  Downy woodpeckers were very possessive of the suet.  One ejected what I think was a white breasted nuthatch.  White throated sparrows came for lunch. 

I went for my booster in the afternoon and then stopped at the library for Doug Tallamy's latest book, Nature's Best Hope.  After that, I took the long way home past Witchduck Lake.  I think all the ducks were mallards, watched over by a statuesque egret.   

Toward evening, the feral cat dashed across the yard to the base of the cedar, but whatever it saw made an escape.  And then it was five o'clock and dark.  K moved the peppers inside for the night. 

Warm and windy

The afternoon was in the low 70s under a clear sky, but the wind thrashed the leaves off trees.  The only birds were ducks and when I looked closely, they were all mallards.  On my way home from a meeting, the moon rose big and round as the sunset after glow faded on the opposite side of the sky.  I waited an hour for the moon to clear the trees, then went out with the camera.  Two planets were bright, Jupiter high and South, Venus low in the West.  The wind drove tattered clouds across them and the moon.  I found a new website for identifying planets. 

Kingfisher

The sky was full of clouds at breakfast but the air was still. The creek reflected muted colors, but soon blue patches opened between the clouds.  

By lunch, the temperature had touched 70.  The volunteer domestic cherry glowed copper.  The oak had bronzed leaves.  I saw yellow jackets and bald-faced hornets on the camellia flowers but just then the camera battery died. 

Yesterday's cutting of the dam vegetation did open another view of the lake.  A couple of crows investigated the shorn bank.  The water level seemed high on the lake but several turtles found space to bask.  A buzzard circled over the house. 

A male kingfisher perched on the downstream dock post.  I saw it make one attempt to catch a fish but we both missed, him with the beak, me with the camera.  He lifted his tail a lot.  I'm not sure what that indicates, except defecation.   Other than him, mallards and cormorants were the only waterbirds.  Chickadees, titmice, and downy woodpeckers were the only feeder birds.  

Pied-bill grebe

It was still chilly.  The air was much calmer than yesterday so the creek mirrored sunlit trees.  Leaves were getting very colorful.  Downy woodpeckers were back at the suet. 

I found a mud wasp's nest underneath a little outdoor table.   A pine warbler briefly clung to the bark of the oak.  A bluebird blended in with the oak leaves. 

Canada geese glided through reflections.  It's time the migrant ducks arrived but all I saw for sure were mallards, some tipping head-down to feed.  I thought I glimpsed a merganser but I couldn't be sure.  Then a pied-bill grebe paddled downstream. 

Some idiot mowed the marsh grass on the dam with a small "Cat." I'm not sure what you'd call the device.  Despite the noise, turtles sunned themselves on the lake. 

Windy

No morning reflections on the creek - the wind made it choppy.  It even blew the fire out under our lunch.  Mallards bobbed in the water, looking for their lunch.  Woodpeckers had to have suet despite the wind.  

Chilly

A newly arrived white throated sparrow posed nicely.  A clump of leaves blew down behind another bird, looking like a gigantic jumping spider or a fantasy goblin.  That sparrow appeared to be blind in one eye as though it had recovered from conjunctivitis. 

Pine and yellow rumped warblers teased the camera.  It was a nice day but cold.