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Raptors
We went to the Cornell Lab for their Migration Celebration today. It was pretty chilly for outdoor activities, but they had lots of fun exhibits and activities inside. Outdoors, we saw a bird banding demo as well as a number of raptors up close — including E3, the offspring of Big Red and Ezra that was injured, rescued, and rehabilitated at the Lab.
Here are just a few of the others.
Golden eagle.
American kestrel.
Falcon mix.
Merlin.
Eagle owl.
Harris hawk.
Barred owl.
And a very talkative great horned owl!
There were some other raptors as well — a spectacled owl and a screech owl, and perhaps some others after we left. They are all captive birds that can’t live in the wild, but you still get a glimpse of their beauty and ferocity.
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Young eagle
This juvenile bald eagle was perched between the road and the river. Drive-by nature study!
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Stairway
Our run of lovely weather seems to have ended for now. It was overcast today, and rain is in the forecast. But yesterday was a different story.
We entered a favorite trail by the boardwalk helpfully marked with a white stripe — but the leaves nearly obscured it altogether.
We walked to the bottom of what’s usually a small waterfall, but it’s been so dry we were able to do something we’ve never done before: we climbed the falls like stairs.
The stream bed made a nice trail and provided lots of opportunity to admire the leaves and reflections.
Acorns and other nuts were falling, and the chipmunks were scurrying everywhere on the steep banks gathering them. They blend in well with the leaves, but once in awhile one held still long enough for a picture.
Other than that, we didn’t see any wildlife, other than a few warblers up too high to identify. I consoled myself as we walked along this stretch of trail by remembering all the animals I’d seen here before…
…brown creepers in early spring, yellow-rumped warblers in fall, black and white warblers and oven birds in summer, deer, salamanders, even a tiny fawn just off to the left a few years ago. It was a joy to have these memories return as we walked the familiar path.
The trail ends at a meadow with a nice view of distant hills.
We weren’t the only ones enjoying the day. There were other people in the woods, all of us with the same idea of how best to appreciate October’s bright blue weather.
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Seasonal Palette
I was struck by the bleached out look of the ferns along the same trail where they are so strikingly green in the early spring.
Yet — on the quintessentially autumn day, with its dapples of sunlight and its breezes making all the foliage dance — they are just as beautiful as they were in spring.
Fall’s color palette is a little different, richer in reds and browns. Whether it’s dead leaves or fresh winterberries, there are plenty of accents.
It’s always interesting to me that my initial impression of perfection — perfect red berries — shows flaws when I look at it through the camera: dead leaves, little spots on the berries, strands of spider web.
Maybe flawlessness doesn’t have much to do with beauty. It’s all around us, all the time.
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Lunar eclipse
Our family had a little pre-breakfast astronomy study this morning, observing the lunar eclipse — or “Blood Moon.”
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Morning river
My daughter let me use her camera to get this photo of the river this morning. Fog muted the colors along the bank and cloaked the hillside.
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Sunday stroll
The leaves are nowhere near their peak, but that’s not to say there isn’t plenty of fall color. The light has that special fall look, too — somehow brighter and more merciless. I’m not sure why that word comes to mind, but it does.
It makes for more brilliant reflections on water, where it’s hard to tell where the real ends and the reflection begins.
We enjoyed a sunbathed walk yesterday along paths that invited reflection of a different kind.
It’s always amazing to me when the eye falls on something as tiny as this toad among the heights and colors of the forest.
So many places for little things to hide….
…and the animals are taking on their winter colors. This young deer blended in so well it didn’t even bother to run away.
We walked a little further and met another. They were both from this spring’s batch of fawns, I’m guessing, and they were very unwary.
This one walked up to us, curious and utterly innocent.
It came within 8 feet to check us out.
Finally it figured out that we weren’t familiar or promising, and bounded away down the trail.
I’ve never been approached that closely by a deer before. Hopefully this youngster wouldn’t be so slow to react to a coyote!
It was a lovely day for a walk, and this encounter was definitely a highlight.
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The falls in fall
Most of these are photos of familiar scenes. Because I’ve already taken lots of pictures here, I played with photo effects to frame the scenes or give them an added interest.
Not that this natural setting needs help… It’s a place of endless interest to me.
So many interesting curves and staircases…
…and so many interesting waterworks.
Even the puddles are interesting.
Everyone with me found it exhilarating as usual — human and non-human alike.
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Adirondack Album
We visited the Adirondacks in July. Here is just a sampling of the beauties we enjoyed.
Bog 
Distant haze 
White-throated sparrow 
Mystery trail 
Hidden art 
Broad-winged hawk 
Maze 
Roadside frill 
Crowded hilltop 
Mountaintop view -
Spring and fall
It was in the 40’s this morning, and before the fog had cleared, I went for a walk.
It was pretty quiet, and I’d reconciled myself to the likelihood that I wouldn’t see much bird or wildlife activity. But when I reached my favorite hedgerow in the upper meadow, a yellow warbler greeted me.
There was lots of activity there — so much that it was difficult choosing what to focus on, and what to ignore. A catbird got busy tattling on me — “Awake! Fire! Foes! Awake!”
There were several yellowthroats, some of them females and some of them, I think, juveniles. They tried hard to be quiet, but the scolding and rustling weren’t hard to follow.
A blackburnian warbler flitted high up in the treetops. There was a young oriole, too, and a pileated woodpecker I heard but didn’t see. But closer to me were the calls of towhees, and I was tickled to see not one, but two, juveniles.
They seemed as curious about me as I was about them.
Another large, reddish bird scolded me with authority from the bushes, and I wondered if, with its speckled breast and rich cinnamon color, it was a wood thrush. I never did get a great picture, but this one made it clear what kind of bird it was.
A juvenile brown thrasher! Its long tail and yellow eye identified it as a younger version of one of my favorite birds.
This sparrow (I’m not sure what variety — perhaps a song sparrow) looks rumpled like a juvie, but with its beakfull of goodies it may be a mother supplementing her offspring’s diet.
I’d been out for nearly two hours and needed to be getting home, so I started the long walk back to the car, determined not to linger. Head down, walking quickly, I was startled by the sound of thrashing just ahead. It was a doe and two fawns. So that’s the picture I missed — but I have the memory. They melted away into the brush.
It was cool, like the fall, and in fact the fall is near at hand. But the leaves haven’t turned yet, and with all the youngsters I saw it seemed more like spring than fall.
