Only almost the middle of August, but there were definitely more than a couple of red leaves on the forest floor. Definitely enough to draw notice and think, hmm, in a couple of weeks both the ground and I will be wearing more than we what we are today. The mornings will be chillier, although the days will continue to be warm. After a hot dry spell, today was a wonderful breath of relief, a just right morning in the woods by the lake.
As we do most of the time, we had the woods to ourselves, and they were abnormally quiet today. Wood Pewees, a couple of Rufous-sided Towhees, a Downy woodpecker, and bush birdies that I couldn't identify. I only just discovered that the call that I've been hearing in the woods, the song that has been driving me crazy because I heard it constantly yet never saw the singer, is the Wood Pewee. My husband used the power of technology, using the Merlin app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. I now walk through the woods a little more peacefully because I'm not racking my brain trying to figure out what I'm hearing. We all have something that drives us crazy - sitting in traffic, people that drive too slow, people who don't pick up their dog's poop, that unidentified bird in the woods (actually all of those things raise my stress level...)
Hope you have a great weekend!