The sky was overcast, the temperatures had cooled down, and so it seems had the activity at Petrie the morning we visited.
The kingfisher must have been studying the fishing habits/location of the fishermen as a kingfisher was sitting on the culvert under the road studying the outflow very closely. It allowed me to get relatively close before flying off to a downstream tree .
I find it difficult to distinguish between a mallard and a black duck. I believe the first grouping below is black ducks, the second grouping is mallards.
We spotted great blue herons in 3-4 locations, whether they were all unique herons or just two moving about, I'm not sure.
There seemed to be only one egret, and it stayed in the same location for several hours. At one point it watched a male wood duck and a grebe (which is hard to see the photo) swim by him.
A single cormorant was resting on a deadhead in the middle of Turtle Pond
There were a good number of "LBJ's" (Little Brown/Black Jobs) flitting about. I must admit I have little patience for trying to photograph them. But I did mange to get half decent shots of a phoebe and a white-throated sparrow. The sparrow was migrating through the air on its way back south.
A few late season wildflowers were still blooming - touch-me-nots, fall asters and (white) asters. But most of the last group have gone to seed.
There are still some unopened milkweed pods, but many had split open to distribute their seeds
The ninebark bush that has been in the same location for 25 years had gone to seed as well.
There were plenty of plants that had produced berries. Pictured below are: dogwood, buckthorn (2), highbush cranberry, bittersweet and wild grape
Fern-like in looks, but not to touch, the field thistle colour made it a standout. Many of the ferns were covered with dew drops
A few frogs were in the open, but as expected no turtles
A muskrat was busy munching on water plants
It was cool enough that the bottleflies weren't too busy flying around
There were signs that the beaver were likely starting to stock their winter larders. Many branch-dragging marks in the sand and freshly "pruned" trees
Fall colours were showing on some maple and sumac trees
There weren't many mushrooms around but I did find four shortly after spotting a log covered in turkey tail fungus
A few people were out on the river and the ponds. Don't forget to bring your cellphone on a quiet paddle!
