After a few days of rain, the weather was nice, so I spent some time outside to take advantage of it. After I picked Rowan up from preschool we had a picnic lunch at Swan Lake. This afternoon we went on a family outing up Harbor Mountain to look around, but did not spend much time outside. Connor and I walked around the picnic area. Rowan had fallen asleep on the drive up and Melissa stayed with her. Connor, Rowan, and I went for a walk down to the end of Totem Park late in the afternoon.
Weather: Partly cloudy skies with light winds. It was definitely cooler today. I think highs were only in the mid-50s and it was in the upper 40s still by mid-morning. I would not be surprised to see a little fresh snow on the tallest peaks soon.
Birds: This morning while I was doing some work in the home office, a flock of Robins and Starlings descended on the backyard. I stood up to take a look at them and saw a Northern Flicker also.
At Swan Lake the two Greater White-fronted Geese were still there. I also saw a single female Green-winged Teal.
There were quite a few gulls at Totem Park. Most seemed to be Thayer’s, but there were also Glaucous-winged and Herring Gulls in the mix.
After the gulls cleared out when we walked by, we also saw the Ruddy Turnstone, Semipalmated Plover, and three Black Turnstones.
Among the Mallards in the estuary was a Northern Pintail.
The last couple of times I have been to the park, I have seen and heard small flocks of Pine Siskins or Red Crossbills, I’m not comfortable trying to separate them by flight calls and I did not get a good look at them.
Other Notes: I’m wondering if Leeches are pretty common in Swan Lake. Rowan went wading and got in over her boots. When Melissa showed up and said hi, she helped Rowan off with her boots and ended up with a leech crawling (if you can call it that) on her hand. It was much smaller than the one Rowan found last month.
Vegetation above the treeline is definitely showing the yellow and browns of fall. I also noticed some ground dogwood with red leaves.