Fall Delicacy

I was a little fuzzy today after last night's blipmeet. The fuzziness was aided and abetted by the rainy and cool fall weather which had everyone in a subdued mood.

But it is a beautiful season full of subtle delights like the emerging forms of spent flowers.

And the October birds have arrived on schedule. It's a feast for my ears as well as my eyes.

Nature Notes

- The winter birds, juncoes and white-throated sparrows have started to come back.
- The October migrants are starting to pass through: hermit thrushes, orange-crowned warblers, chickadees (some of whom will stay), red-breasted nuthatches, golden-crowned kinglets, robins who nested farther north
- Grackles are still moving and I hear their rusty, squeaky call everywhere.

I'm now much more sensitive to birds sounds and have heard young male robins, grackles, juncoes and hermit thrushes practicing their singing softly as they forage in the trees. Listen for a song that is almost a song, a song that is almost a babble.

The joys of fall.