dodging rain drops and walnut nuts

Got in a shortened morning walk dodging rain drops. Judging by the 'chink' sounds and occasional bursts of song, I was surrounded by largely invisible White-throated Sparrows during the first part of the walk; were these birds here all the time or are there new arrivals beefing up the population? In the same head-of-marsh area, I thought I heard a Winter Wren giving a rough version of its rather extended song but I could never get a good look at whatever was moving around in the underbrush and the wren that finally showed was a Marsh Wren. Usually the Marsh Wren songs are short and less melodic but this bird was apparently stringing together his rather unmelodic tunes to make a better show of it. Nearby was a Common Yellowthroat with a very bright yellow throat and a Blue-headed Vireo with very bright wing bars.

Several raptors were around: a medium-sized blue-backed accipiter which might have been a female Sharp-shinned or a male Cooper's; two or three Osprey over the creek; and a big crow-chased raptor with broad wings, long tail and a barely glimpsed white rump -- in short, a Northern Harrier.

The heavy gusts of wind have almost completely stripped the Tupelos bare and created a veritable storm of oak, walnut and sassafras leaves just about everywhere as well as provoking a veritable rain of acorns and hickory nuts. In a few places, the hickories are replaced by the huge Black Walnut nuts. I wish I knew how to crack them open without getting my fingers black and ending up with inedible wooden chips mixed in with walnut meat. And, no, I don't wish for one of these cannonballs to fall on my head as I saunter by. Could happen.  

Eric Salzman