weather, birds, mushrooms & asters

The continuous streak of lousy weather has made things difficult for birds and birders alike. The rain itself has been a problem but not so much as the high winds and high tides which have flooded out all the paths around the edge of the marsh and even up into some trails that usually stay dry. This morning's tide was high but not quite as bad as that of recent days and there was little or no rain or wind. I managed to catch up with one flock of mostly Tufted Titmice (Titmouses?) accompanied by American Redstart, Northern Parula, Black-and-White Warbler, a few Yellow-rumped Warblers, an Eastern Phoebe, a Brown Thrasher and, by sound only, a Northern Waterthrush. Also a Red-breasted Nuthatch or two, the usual Am Robins, Crows and Blue Jays plus a medium-sized Accipiter (probably a female Sharp-shinned Hawk) that was being chased across the creek by the crows.

I tried to track down some high-pitched sounds that I'm pretty sure were emanating from some Golden-crowned Kinglets but I could not verify this. However Derek Rogers, the preserves manager for the Nature Conservancy, reports a flock of migrants this morning at Pine Neck, just across the creek, that included the uncommon Yellow-throated Vireo as well as Golden-crowned Kinglets and other warblers and vireos.

Mushrooms, not necessarily edibles, have sprouted everywhere -- notably the yellow form of the Amanita muscaria, the notorious Fly Mushroom (that's the one, usually shown as red with white spots on top and a troll underneath; it's more hallucinogenic that deadly poisonous but I'm not recommending it). And there are a few pockets of blue asters as well as some of the smaller white asters, all adding to the fall colors that are starting to come in.

Eric Salzman