Snow!!
And here I thought yesterday's frost was pretty; the thick snowflakes that fell today made the landscape outside our windows nothing short of stunning. I especially love the way the snow accents the fall leaves at their peak. How often am I going to get to see our yard's Red Maple looking like this?
Despite the heavy snow, it was business as usual today for our resident Gray Squirrels. I can't tell: is this little one excited about the snow, perturbed, or just indifferent?
I do so love snow. What an amazing birthday present. :)
I knew, when I left my apartment to drive to Naugatuck State Forest this morning, that it would be a cold walk. My first big tip-off came last night, when the falling raindrops turned suspiciously thick and sludgy. My suspicions were confirmed this morning, when I had to scrape ice off of my windshield for the first time this year, and then when I saw several cars (commuters, I presume) driving around with an inch or two of snow (real snow!) on their roofs. Winter, it seems, is on its way!
When I arrived at the woods, it wasn't just cold -- it was frozen. Not the lakes (that will come later), but leaves, plants, and everything else:
Mmm, pretty. Frost makes even common plants -- like the plantains, clover, and wild carrots in the picture above -- seem extraordinary, like they're dressed up for a special occasion. And how cute are the strawberry leaves in this next picture, all frosted and nestled in a bed of dry grass?
Frozen it may have been, but the animals didn't seem to mind. Birds were chittering and flying around everywhere, and there were plenty of creatures to see.
This female Hairy Woodpecker* was hard at work excavating a large hole in a fantastically fungus-covered tree:
Update 12/22/11: I've changed my mind, and I'm fairly convinced now that this is a Downy Woodpecker. I've seen some more Hairy Woodpeckers since I took this picture, and they do seem to be much bigger and with more strikingly large beaks and heads than this girl. So... Downy it is -- sorry for the confusion! (Either way, I still think the pictures are cool.)
Better check to see if the hole is big enough yet! (And I wonder what she will use it for.)
A pair of Hermit Thrushes was foraging for food among the mud and fallen leaves, and this one seems to have found something:
Something delicious, I hope?
This funky little bird is a Brown Creeper:
A little creeper, just creeping along. This bird is really good at climbing vertically up tree trunks, but I'm not actually sure that it can go downwards at all -- Brown Creepers generally creep up a tree for a little while, looking for tasty bugs in the bark, and then they fly down to the base of the next tree and start climbing up again. I think these birds are super cool, and I didn't even know they existed until I started visiting this forest about a year ago. And they're pretty good at the camouflage thing, too:
Other sights from today's walk included a flock of kinglets (Ruby-crowned and Golden-crowned) that seemed to follow me wherever I went, and a teeny Red Squirrel chasing a Gray Squirrel easily twice its size. Hooray for activity, and hooray for living things!
Notes:
*I've been getting much more confident recently about distinguishing between Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers -- these two species look very similar, especially when they're not sitting side by side -- but this picture had me second-guessing myself for a little while. This bird's beak looks small for a Hairy Woodpecker, but big for a Downy. So that's confusing. However, I don't see any black marks on this bird's outer tail feathers, and I remember it being fairly large in size, both of which point to Hairy Woodpecker. So that's my identification, at least for now. If anyone wants to correct me, feel free to do so!
I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that my absolute favorite thing about our apartment is the view from my office window. And it's not a view of open sky and steep hills, either -- that's what you see when you look out our other windows -- it's a view directly into a tree that stands a few feet from the window and exactly at eye level, a tree that just happens to be a Red Cedar (also called a Red Juniper, Juniperus virginiana).
This tree is magical. Its dense, scaly, evergreen leaves provide shelter for any creature who needs it, and because it's so near our window, that means we get to see some cool animals up close. (This tree has been featured in the background of some of my posts already, in its capacity as a perch for baby Tufted Titmice, hot House Sparrows, and other assorted creatures.) And in the fall (i.e. right about now), it produces a bonus treat: juicy flesh-covered cones that look like small blue berries, and which the animals -- especially the birds -- just love.
The female Northern Cardinal in the picture above was snacking on the Red Cedar's offering this morning, mashing up the cones' pulp in her big beak, and getting not a little messy in the process (pretty girl, wash your face!):
Last week, a few American Robins stopped by for a meal -- a sleek adult:
And a gangly juvenile or two:
I even saw one of our local Gray Squirrels munching on the cones a couple of days ago -- our squirrels seem to prefer maple seeds, but perhaps the Red Cedar adds some nice variety to their diet:
Last year, this tree produced a bumper crop, with little blue spheres clustered on every branch tip, and we got long visits from very happy flocks of Cedar Waxwings and Yellow-rumped Warblers as a result. This years bounty is much more tame, but still, the cones are just sitting there waiting to be eaten, and I'll be watching to see which animals stop by to oblige!
To the person who decided, long ago, to plant this tree outside our window: Thank you!
**Blooper Reel**
At one point in my photo shoot with the female Northern Cardinal, she shook her head, and I snapped a picture at just exactly the wrong moment. Here's the semi-disturbing result:
She's fine, I promise!
Oh, how I love the woods in the fall. Late yesterday afternoon, I took advantage of the glorious weather and the remaining sunlight to go for a (relatively) quick walk around the lakes at Naugatuck State Forest. The colors are really getting bright out there, and the leaves were almost glowing in the sun. I don't think I could've asked for a lovelier path:
Or a prettier stream:
And the lake, with its multi-colored banks lit up by the afternoon sun....
Yes, it was a good day for a walk.
The animals were mostly quiet and hidden while I was there, but a few creatures did come out to check in on me. This Red Squirrel paused mid-vertical-scamper to watch me approach:
Honestly, I can't get over the cuteness of these creatures. Those big eyes! That luminous red and white fur! And you can even see tiny tufts on the ends of this guy's ears:
As I was nearing the end of my walk, and as the sun was just dipping below the treeline, I reached a stretch of path bordered by seed-topped goldenrod stems:
This particular goldenrod stand was (as you can almost see in the picture) blanketed with clouds of flying insects, and between the seeds and the bugs, it had become a veritable bird banquet. Flitting from ground to goldenrod to nearby trees (and back) were chickadees, titmice, a tiny Ruby-crowned Kinglet, and this striking fellow:
It's a Blue-headed Vireo, although I have to think with those awesome white spectacles, there must be another more interesting name we could give this bird. This was a new bird for me, and I was glad to meet him or her before the migration season is finished.
Beautiful scenery, a fluffy cute creature, and a pretty new bird -- what a great day. :)
(Seen outside my window this afternoon.)
