A good walk soured by stupidity

Today was my last visit to the park this October and the weather is still warmer than normal. I hope it lasts even longer. I arrived just after 8am and the sky was a hazy mix of overcast and spots of orange sunshine trying to break through. My walk was rather quiet and uneventful until I go all the way to the north side just before the bridge where I spotted a Doe and two Fawns. I was glad to see that the trio has so far been spared by the archery hunt that had started at the beginning of the month. I later spotted a large Hawk in a tree across the park -too far for a good picture. As I was making my way around the southeast side I noticed some containers among the cattails about 10 feet off the trail. They looked to be full of dark liquid and I thought to myself "no way would someone toss out used oil in a park." I had to find out for sure so I walked into the cattails, stepping into wet muddy places where my shoes sank halfway. Sure enough, I found multiple gallon containers filled to the brim with used motor oil!!! I could not believe it. I was torn with feeling both anger and disappointment, trying my hardest to figure out why someone would do something so inconsiderate. With how much discussion of environmental concerns that our society has on a regular basis now, the person who did this must either be completely oblivious to all media; extremely uneducated, or have a personal vendetta against something that I don't understand. With a still overwhelming feeling of disbelief, I picked up as many jugs as I could find and brought them to the path. Luckily the caps were still on and holding most of the oil inside. Sadly there were more than pictured here, and I even fished another full gallon out of the water on the opposite side of the trail! As I was gathering up all of these jugs, an older gentleman on a bike came by and decided to help me bring them to the nearest trash can. He then volunteered to call the City to tell them what we had found & have them pick it up. I felt a bit better at this point, thinking -and hoping- that the majority of people would recognize this action as a mistake and try to correct it. I thought about how upset this made me and how minute of an event it was in comparison the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year. The problem with some of the mistakes we make on such a large scale, is that they might never be corrected. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill

Autumn Hanging On Strong

It's been almost 2 weeks since my last visit and I am surprised that the warm and mild weather is sill hanging on. Not only that but there are parts of the park that are just now displaying their best Fall colors. As I've said before, Palmer Lake Park is not a good place to see Fall foliage -being it mostly a swamp, overgrown with invasive Buckthorn trees. Even so, it had it's moments today against the rich, blue Autumn sky. This particular view on the north side was one that stuck in my memory from earlier in the year, on a day with lots of frost. How different it looked now. A few other things caught my attention around the park today including busy Squirrels, Chickadees, Deer, Wood Ducks and more Starlings. I am just now learning to recognize and remember the Starling's unique "slide-whistle" sounding call. When I came back around to the south side I spotted a large number of Coots out in the water. Other than maybe Canada Geese, I think this is probably the largest number of one species I've ever seen together at the park. I didn't even try to count them all, and this photo only shows a small section of them. Not much later I was making my way back to the parking lot and ran into another acquaintance I know only from the park. As we stood talking about what we'd seen today, he pointed out a "Marsh Hawk" over the water near the center of the park. I'd never seen one before -or at least knew how to identify one. It didn't take too long before we could see the tell tale white "rump patch" as it swooped upwards. A Marsh Hawk is properly known as a Northern Harrier and a new bird species I can add to my list. As we both watched the clear blue sky, more birds of prey came into view, including a Red-tailed Hawk and also a juvenile Bald Eagle. To our delight, the young Bald Eagle and the Harrier decided to play a friendly game of dogfight in which the two would both show off their aerial skills by playfully attacking each other. It was pretty fun to watch -especially through binoculars. While this was going on, the Red-tailed Hawk glided along much higher up in the sky, almost an invisible speck. Also, here is the first photo from today combined with the photo I remember taking in early February. If you think the top photo was in black and white you would be mistaken. But I can sure see why one might assume that when you compare it to the bottom photo. Click on the photo for a larger view.

October Evening

With the beautiful weather over the weekend I was up for another visit on Monday after work. This is getting increasingly harder to do now that sunset is coming earlier by a few minutes every day. I arrived at the park just before 6pm and the sun was already casting a horizontal orange glow on the trees. I saw one single Doe right off the bat on the southern wood chip trail but she was quite far away. Later on the north side another Doe was much closer to the trail and as I watched I noticed another much larger Deer in the background. To my surprise it was a Buck with either 4 or 5 point antlers. It was already getting dark and I had a hard time getting a photo that wasn't completely blurry. I'd knelt down for stability in taking a picture and much like many other times, the Doe became curious and walked right up to me, stopping within about a 10 foot range. Though it was quite dark now, she was close enough for a much better photo than I would get of the Buck. I moved along after a few minutes as I knew I'd be racing the clock to get back before it was totally dark. I could see a nice sunset forming and I picked up my pace even more to get to the southeast side for a more open view. The sun set so fast you could pick up on the changing color in real time. I had one more surprise in store when I got back near the parking lot. I was just coming up the hillside from the paved trail when I noticed something moving quickly down the hill to my right. There were TWO Coyotes together trotting one behind another along the cattails. I had absolutely no chance of a photo because it was too dark now but it was a pretty cool thing to see none the less. It's rare for me to even see Coyotes outside of winter but two of them together was even more rare -in fact it was a first for me.

Warm and Wiiiindy

This Sunday was another nice sunny and warm day, only it was super windy. Because of the wind I didn't expect to see many birds but I was able to get closer to this Cardinal than I normally get to them. In fact I walked up right underneath him. From this angle he didn't fit that familiar "regal" and trim looking shape but rather more like a fat Robin. In the first little pond near the parking lot I also spotted a few Wood Ducks -with just one being a Male. They are so much more skittish than Mallards and took off at the first sight of me. It doesn't seem like there's been as many Wood Ducks this year compared to last, and I definitely have not gotten as close to them this year. It's getting so late now that this may be the last I see of them this season. Later I spotted another Easter Phoebe catching insects over the water. I took some photos but they turned out all washed out from the bright sun reflecting on the water. Despite the strong wind, Canada Geese were moving around in large flocks today. No two groups ever seem to be headed the same direction. This larger than normal group circled above me for a bit and broke into more of a circular pattern versus a typical "v."

Definitely a Migrating Bird

Today I ran into a fellow birder early on in my walk and we continued all the way around the park together talking about birds and what-not. The walk went fast with the good conversation and I realized I'd not taken nearly as many pics as I usually do. One thing I did photograph however is pretty cool I think -and I doubt I would have positively identified it on my own. It was a Ruby-crowned Kinglet who was definitely migrating given it is now mid October. Thought it's not a great photo, you can actually see just barely a hint of the ruby colored patch if you view the larger image. Pretty neat since my last sighting was 6 months ago in May! One of my few other sightings was this common orange Butterfly among the fall leaves. I just learned it's name is a "Question Mark" named for a white shape seen only on it's under-wing.

Day off walk

Today was Monday but I had the day off of work. I decided to get a walk in fairly early and arrived just before 8:30am. One of the first things I noticed were the calls of Red-winged Blackbirds. It struck me that it's been a while since I've heard so many of them -and being this late in the year it seems likely that these were birds who had been further north and were just moving through the area headed back south. In one of the small sloughs on the east side, you can now walk along the water for a bit due to recent construction going on in the park. Rock has been added around some of the drainage openings which should prevent erosion and also help filter water. Here I spotted and Eastern Phoebe, recognizable by it's pattern of returning to the same branch after repeatedly flying out to catch insects. A short time later on the edge of the ball fields I could see 4 or 5 birds that I easily recognized, although don't seem to common at Palmer Lake. I recently learned that the European Starling was introduced to the US in the late 1800's by a group of Shakespeare enthusiasts who wanted to introduce all birds mentioned in his plays. All European or "Common" Starlings you see today would be descendants of 100 Starlings introduced to Central Park in New York! Read more here. Near the end of my walk I had an opportunity to see another common bird that has been elusive to my camera lens -a Dark-eyed Junco. They typically will keep moving forward as I approach, just far away enough to make them hard to photograph. It was a bit unusual to find myself right underneath this one.

There is a Season Turn, Turn, Turn

October is one of my favorite months -although you can never be quite sure what the weather will bring. Our first snow of the season can be as early as the first week in October! So far though, the month is full of sun and warmth. If it stays this way for a while it might just make up for the blasted hot summer we had. Other than a lot of busy squirrels, the first thing of interest today was this sign on the north side notifying park-goers of an archery deer hunt going on. I knew the city has organized these in the past but this was the first time I'd seen signs posted about it. It's a bit of a catch-22 for deer living in an urban area like this. Though it's probably a somewhat safe and sheltered habitat, they're unlikely to ever stray too far from it as there's just too much city streets to navigate before reaching another habitable area. With such a small and defined habitat, they're subject to intensive control when their population grows even just a bit too large. It will be interesting to see what the results are at the end of the hunt in mid December. The park doesn't really have a lot of great "fall color" trees, except for a few maples on the outlying areas surrounding the baseball fields and tennis courts. Still, it's apparent that the drastically wet summer, followed by an extremely dry Fall has had some unusual effects on the foliage. Some trees that were beautifully red this time last year have already dropped their leaves, while other trees haven't even started to turn yet. Amazingly you can find extreme variation on the same tree or plant like the one pictured here -which I think is a grapevine. With all the warm sun on the trail this time of year you have to watch your step just like you do in the Spring time. Only now it's not snails but grasshoppers that pepper the pavement in hopes of soaking up some warmth. These particular ones can get pretty big. This was my 3rd or 4th attempt at a photo -as they can move just a bit faster than a snail!