Late Summer and Early Fall at the House, Part 1: Mammals and Birds

I live in a wonderful place. When I last reported on the goings-on at our new home, it was the end of July, and I had just experienced the height of summer for the first time here. Since then, late summer and early fall have happened, bringing all sorts of new creatures and natural sights. And I love that I get to settle into this environment while the seasons change.

In mid-August, everything was full and green, and have I mentioned that I love this place?

I just learned, by the way, that the big forested ridge behind our house in this picture (which is across the street from our property) was recently purchased by a local land trust with the goal of conserving the land and eventually transferring ownership to the state to become part of a state forest. I couldn't be happier about the knowledge that this lovely mature forest -- which was the source of singing Veeries and Winter Wrens all summer -- will be protected for the foreseeable future.

By mid-September, the colors were starting to change. The huge Virginia Creeper vines at the edge of our woods (growing mostly on tall Black Cherry trees) changed to a dramatic deep red, making the trees look like they were wearing red leggings:
 

The Virginia Creepers' color was especially intense from underneath, with sunlight shining through:

Also in September, my sister visited and helped us widen a deer path to make a trail through our small patch of woods. It's a short trail, but it's ours, and it lets us see things like light through the red creeper leaves.

And now, we're deep into fall, with shorter days and colder weather, and we even had our first big frost this past Tuesday morning (making me so very curious to see what this place will look like with snow):

But what about the animals in the past two and a half months, you ask? Well! Allow me to give an update. I have too many things to share for one post, so two posts it will be!

Mammals

The variety of mammals we've seen on the property has remained rather limited, but there's still a lot of mammalian activity out there. Eastern Chipmunks are all over the place. I had a few glimpses of Gray Squirrels and Red Squirrels on the edges of our property in late summer -- it's so strange to live in a place where squirrels are a rare sighting. In the past month, though, Red Squirrels have become much more active around the house:
 

And I think I know why.... Someone's been stockpiling Black Walnuts inside the hollowed-out trunk of our driveway apple tree:
 

(This, by the way, has turned out to be the best of the various old apple trees on the property, with crisp fruit that's great for both eating fresh and baking. What a treat!)

A few times in September, we heard Coyotes howling and yipping way off in the woods. And at least twice so far (once in August, and once in September), a lovely bat has roosted during the day under an eave just outside one of our windows; I'm pretty sure this is a Big Brown Bat, but I could be wrong; either way, I love this little face:

White-tailed Deer have continued to be common visitors in our yard and meadow, although they tend to come and go in waves. For a few days at the beginning of September, the deer were coming to eat fallen apples from the tree right next to the house. (And they're more than welcome to these apples; the tree itself is lovely, but the apples were just not good.) First, a dappled fawn showed up by himself and munched on apples for a good hour or so one afternoon, giving me some great close-up views of this lovely creature:
 

Look at that super fuzzy tail:
 

What a handsome baby:
 

A few days later, more deer showed up to enjoy the apple feast, including this velvet-antlered buck:
 

His strategy involved working a whole apple in his mouth until it split into smaller pieces:
 

And he made some pretty funny faces in the process:
 

Now, these deer are dressed in their sleek and stark winter outfits. (No more velvet for the buck, no more spots for the fawn.) Here's one of the local does in the meadow this past Thursday morning:
 

Birds

Just about as soon as August hit, the bird population on the property started shifting around, first with new birds showing up who likely bred nearby, and then with southbound migrants passing through on their way from their northern breeding groups. Walks in our woods in mid-August let me see a Hooded Warbler (and this looks like just the right kind of shrubby woods where Hooded Warblers might breed):
 

At the same time, a beleaguered Magnolia Warbler parent was rushing around to feed a constantly-begging fledgling:
 

Wild Turkeys have wandered through the yard several times (and the best sight, so far, has been watching them take off from the yard and glide low, down across the meadow and away from the house). I heard a Barred Owl calling in the distance on a couple of nights in September. A Pileated Woodpecker has made some impressive holes in a stump in our yard.

Blue Jays were certainly around in the summer -- I heard them, anyway -- but they've been making an increasingly strong presence in the yard in recent weeks, joining the ranks of the other especially common birds in our yard: House Finches, Gold Finches, Black-capped Chickadees, American Robins, American Crows.

A young, reddening House Finch made a pretty sight in late August among reddening apples:

The White Spruce trees in our yard are packed with cones, and when they started opening at the end of August, the local American Goldfinches swarmed all over them. Here are a couple of goldfinches enjoying the seeds in mid-September:

Nearby, a Chipping Sparrow parent looked like it was doing its best to ignore its begging child (which I had just watched it feed):

The sparrow influx started in late September, with lots of Dark-eyed Juncos especially coming through, and also my first ever Lincoln's Sparrow:

In October, flocks of Eastern Bluebirds started showing up in the meadow. When they first blew in, I watched them thoroughly check out the old Purple Martin house. I guess all the holes made this a very interesting spot!
 

This morning might have set the record for the most birds in the meadow and yard at once so far. Several juncos were grabbing goldenrod seeds, robins were all over the Pokeweed plants, bluebirds were flying from trees to meadow and back (and snatching some Pokeweed berries, too), and a flock of Pine Siskins showed up, joining the regular finches. Add in a couple of Golden-crowned and Ruby-crowned Kinglets, a Downy Woodpecker, a few Blue Jays, White-throated Sparrows, a Carolina Wren, and a Yellow-rumped Warbler, and it was quite the crowd.

With all the new faces and activity in the past two and a half months, the overall list of birds seen or heard on the property so far is up to 68 species. That's a pretty great number as far as I'm concerned! And I love that this place is already able to attract so many birds. Looking ahead, I've got a few additions in mind that will hopefully make our property an even better place for birds to live and visit and thrive. :)

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The rest of this report -- amphibians, reptiles, insects, etc. -- is coming soon!