SONGBIRDS & MUSKRAT LODGE

Brrr!  Chilly this morning!  I should have brought some gloves.  Gorgeous, though; the rising sun shines through all the fall leaves and reflects off of the rain drops.  

I spent most of my time watching the small song birds today.  There were Eastern Phoebes in the berry bushes on the north side, near the muskrat lodge.  Other birds were there, too, but I couldn't ID them (I'm not really very good at the non-feeder birds, especially warblers and most especially FALL warblers!).  A couple were sparrow like, maybe even a pine siskin, but it seems early for the siskins.  Another had a soft-yellow belly!  There are a lot of berries over there, so many birds feed in those bushes.  It is worth another look.

The muskrat lodge seemed bigger than the last time I looked at it, yet it still seems about 3 feet tall.  Possibly it was just easier to see because the bushes are dying away, or maybe they have added to it some; the position of the sticks and such seem a little bit different, but the size seems about the same.

Muskrat Lodge Oct 10, 2012

Muskrat Lodge, Oct 2, 2012

I saw two muskrat crossings (same animal or two different ones?). One took back a large water chestnut plant.

I tried some new technology while out on the pond and used Dragon Dictate on my iPhone to keep track of the birds and such.  It worked well and I could speak through the waterproof case!  A few problems, like "60 candidate geese" and "would ducks"  Hmmm...  Here is the list:

• 60 Canada geese in upper end of pond. 
• Four more in lower end of pond. 
• 15 wood ducks in lower end of pond and about 30 more mid-pond, maybe more but I can't see all the way to the end of the pond.
• Lower end of pond had so many ducks & geese that you could almost walk across the pond on the back of the birds. Seem to be mallards and black ducks.
• Great Blue flying overhead, croaking all the way. 
• Two swan together near the brook inlet
• Kingfisher flew over. 
• Several blue jays calling in the tree.  Hawk overhead. Two hawks overhead. That's probably what the blue jays are complaining about. 
• No otters today; I haven't seen them in a while. But on the other hand, we were gone all weekend and I've only been out paddling twice in the last week.