16 September

A warm Saturday morning in the Forest and Wetlands.  

It's still alarmingly dry.  Trees are plainly suffering, the cedars most of all.  

Still,  it appears that the forest's proximity to the moisture held by the marsh is somewhat protective.  There are fungi appearing despite the dryness. 


The turkey tails appeared a couple of weeks ago, and are growing steadily. 

Mosses and ferns appear a bit dry, but persist.



This spherical growth of moss  looked deceptively like a gall, uncommon on Douglas fir.  



The stump shows that the woodpecker(s?) continue their search for insects.  We wonder if there will be any of it left by the end of the season. 


The hornets are still working at their reconstruction task. 


The water level in the marsh continues to decline,


but still has surface water and boggy peat.


From aerial photos of past summers, the south end of the marsh keeps open water.  Flocks of geese headed toward that area, apparently disputing loudly whether it was a good stopping spot.



They didn't seem to manage a consensus--some landed, others flew on.  




In addition to the geese, we watched two merlins circling high above the marsh.


We'd seen them (or other merlins?) some weeks ago, flying low over the marsh, apparently hunting dragonflies.  These continued to circle.  One occasionally dived at the other.


It's not really clear what they were doing--it's not mating season and this diving behaviour isn't mentioned as part of their courtship.  Diving and circling can apparently be territorial according to the Birds of the World website.   

Meanwhile, Mount Arrowsmith awaits the coming season's snowfall, as do we all.

















 

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