Wet Morning

A heavy mist was coming down but the Big Woods beckoned so off I went. Water glistened on every fallen leaf and every twig – which is a good thing if you’re a photographer because it makes colors look more saturated.

First up was a small flock of dark-eyed juncos that flushed from the forest’s shrubby understory. They went so suddenly that only a couple stayed to have photos taken – my reaction time with flushing birds is abysmal.

The juncos left behind two birds that were more interesting anyway. The first was hitching itself up the trunk of a tree – a brown creeper –

There was a second species that didn’t fly off with the juncos but instead flitted through the shrubs, a golden-crowned kinglet –

About a half mile into the Big Woods there was a commotion in a tree not far ahead. The commotion turned out to be two yellow-bellied sapsuckers disputing the possession of the series of feeding holes in a small tree –

The bird that drove off the other turned out to be a male sapsucker with his bright red crown and throat –

For a while I stood and watched him as he fed on the sap flowing into the shallow holes and the insects attracted to the sap –

Moving on there were the glowing wet leaves of a small American beech –

The next thing that caught my eye were the bright white conks of birch polypore growing on a dead black birch that had snapped off –

Speaking of fungi, the small bright red fruiting body of a scarlet cup was there among the fallen leaves –

Everywhere I went the wet moss fairly glowed –

As did the fronds of the fern called rock polypody –

Part of the loop I was walking followed an old woods road; the roadside ditch was full of water and in the water were amphibian eggs, those of a wood frog –

And of a spotted salamander –

As I completed the loop, a white-tailed deer stood watching –

Thus endith the morning.