24 October 2024 (jays' raucous calls)

jays’ raucous calls

as they crowd the feeder

scattershot acorns

26 October 2023 (at large)

at large

the sharp reports

of falling acorns

19 October 2023 (crowsong)

crowsong

the afternoon staccato

of acorns

16 August 2019 (acorns)

what day is it

on my neighbor’s roof

acorns’ staccato

September 10: Sudden harvest

Artillery of acorns

pounds the roof

of the empty house next door.

August 19: In the woods

I was up on Ragged Mountain today helping with some boundary work on a property Coastal Mountains Land Trust hopes to conserve. Indian Pipe (or Ghost Plant), a parasitic flower often associated with beech trees and now in bloom, was scattered throughout the forest understory.

Mountain understory--
dropped acorns and ghost plants
haunt last year's beech leaves.

August 22: Acorns?

I keep hearing things falling through the trees out back, and had assumed they were acorns but then I realized it was too early for acorns. They don't drop till fall, when the mast crops provide protein-rich sustenance for bears, turkeys, and deer that helps fatten them up to survive the winter. So what's making all that noise? Are the squirrels getting a head start on this year's crop, or are they knocking other things down as they fling themselves through the branches?

Random artillery in the trees--
I thought it was acorns
but it's too early.