Walks
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Muted colors of late fall
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Chipmunk
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Tanglewood Trails
We hustled through our schoolwork in the morning and drove to the Tanglewood Nature Center in Elmira yesterday. It was a beautiful sunny day, and we took the trail up to an overlook over the Chemung River Valley.
We spotted two redtails circling over the river, but by the time I got my camera back out, they were high above us.
We ate our lunch there, and I enjoyed reading about Mark Twain’s thoughts on such an experience, posted nearby:
On the way back down we paused at this lower point, and a juvenile eagle soared past at eye level. No pics — but a grand sight.
Of course there were many beautiful perspectives on the trail. We passed through yellow sections, red sections, and conifer sections. I was partial to the golden yesterday — even though “nothing gold can stay.”
The reds were lovely too.
I commented on these bi-colored yellow/red maple leaves, and the kids proceeded to gather specimens.
There were apple trees, and faded pearl crescent butterflies.
We enjoyed the many fossils seen along the trail, too.
When we got back to the bottom, we rested a bit…
…and saw several bluebirds. They were perching in a walnut tree, then swooping down to hawk insects near the ground. It’s always a treat to see our state bird.
I was surprised to see red-winged blackbirds too, plucking and eating the keys from this tree.
On the whole it was a grand way to drink in the sights and smells of autumn.
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Chickadees
We were looking for warblers, but these chickadees stole the show on a walk last week. They were plucking these fruits, and trying to hold onto them with their toes and devour them with their beaks.They dropped many prizes, and the plops were like rain on the dry leaves.
They are great little acrobats, and they earned every delicious bit.
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Brown Thrasher
I tried numerous times to capture a photo of this thrasher in the springtime, but it was too elusive. Who would have guessed that in the fall — the silent season, when the bird isn’t calling attention to itself — it would pose for me?
Thank you, Friend Thrasher.
Also saw some kinglets…
…an ovenbird…
and, across the street, some suburban deer.
This one begs for a word bubble…
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Fall exploring
The girls, the dog, and I had a great walk today. Our dog, we recently learned, has a tumor in her spleen, and the doctor speculates that she has perhaps 2-6 months to live. We are grieving, but trying to give her good quality of life in the time we have. She’s always loved a good woodland explore.
It was a brilliant, clear day, cool and comfortable. Here a few of the sights we took in.
New York Aster 
Pay no attention to that munk behind the curtain… 
See ya! 
Black-throated green warbler, non-breeding plumage 
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Sabbath
Wendell Berry has a whole series of poems called Sabbaths. Accumulated over several decades, they represent his forays into the woods on Sundays — not every Sunday, but a portion of them. Usually we’re in church, but today we went into the woods instead. There is a particular kind of rest, a particular settling and composure, in the solitude of a walk in that setting.The first “wildlife” sighting happened before we even got out of the house: this Carolina wren, who had apparently spent the night in our garage. It was a confident little bird. Maybe it enjoyed the warmth, and whatever bugs it found on the window sills. But when we opened the doors, it paused only to give us a considering glance before flying gracefully away.
Off to the woods, on a morning blanketed in mist.
The moisture in the air made certain usually hidden things visible.
We saw a few deer, but for the most part, it was a time to look closely at the microworlds of mosses and bracket fungus, ferns in their fall stripes, woodpecker work and chipmunks.
My husband was surrounded at one point by small, alarmed rodents, filling the woods with their squeaking.
We were near this stream, a favorite spot, when the sun came out.
It’s interesting to me that although our bird feeding station at home was swarming with birds, the ones in the woods take longer to get up and moving. Maybe they wait for their prey to wake up — not being a welfare state, like our back yard. There were quite a few cardinals, chickadees, robins, nuthatches, hairy woodpeckers, cedar waxwings, Eastern towhees and other birds coming alive and chattering in the trees as we came back out. The gnats were certainly awake as well.
At last — all things come to her who waits — I saw a Tennessee warbler, who scolded me roundly and flew away.
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Signs of fall
Leaves are beginning to crackle underfoot. There is still a green canopy overhead, but the smell of fall is in the air, and there was a freeze warning last night.
The girls and I descended into this lovely gorge for a new perspective on a familiar walk yesterday. We saw this fellow literally “chilling out,” along with several of his friends.
His landlubber pals, tiny toads, were everywhere along the trail, too.
It seems like the summer flew by. I hope to drink in the autumn more fully before it slips away.
There are always surprises if we’re looking.
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Ferd’s Bog
The walk into Ferd’s Bog, where I heard the winter wren, has a primeval feel. It was very quiet, though as we approached the bog itself, we heard a few bush-dwellers rustling about. This one, a hermit thrush (I think), posed so nicely my photo should be better than it is.
On to the bog, traversed by a boardwalk. Earlier in the summer, the grass is red with pitcher plants. Not so much so in August.
Cedar waxwings were everywhere, making their high-pitched noises that, I’ve read, are sometimes too high for the human ear to pick up.
The walk out is equally beautiful, of course, though it seemed all new because we were moving in a different direction.
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Buttermilk Falls
We stumbled upon this state park in Ithaca the other day. I pulled into the entrance to turn around, and the girls took one look and wanted to explore.
So we did.
A trail, mostly stone stairs, led up beside the falls for 3/4 of a mile or so. It was filled with fairylandish vistas; around every corner was a new scene to exclaim over. Out of the rock walls beside the trail, water trickled. It was one of the wettest and most lush walks we’d ever taken.
Can you see the bird’s nest disguised on this wall? 
Pinnacle Rock The walk down was, in a way, more challenging. It’s hard to have the brakes on all the way. The trail down also skirted the falls much more widely, and we couldn’t see them very often. But we surely got an eyeful on the way up.
