November 12th, about 3:45 P.M.  Wood Frog (Rana sylvatica), perhaps out scouting for a suitable place to overwinter.

 

Sunset comes very early now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

November 14th.  First snow.  Thankfully, very little of it, but a nice coating on trees and grass until the sun hit it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

November 15th.  Twentytwo degrees and very frosty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Virtually all of the marsh and most of the channel side were skimmed with ice...

 

On the marsh side, a cluster of Mallards  kept a small patch of water ice free.

 

Icy morning baths.

 

 

 

November 19th.  Today marks 13 years since I started this web site.  Seventeen degrees.  Ice accumulating on branches overhanging Raymond Brook at Old Colchester Road.

 

Leaves below ice on a trailside ditch.

 

 

 

Surprised to see a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodius) hunkered down, far across the marsh.

 

 

 

November 23rd.  Forty degrees.  Clouds breaking up just after dawn.

 

Patches of blue and occasional sun.

 

 

 

Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) back at the marsh.  It was too solidly frozen the past few days.

 

Only occasional pockets of open water; most of the marsh with a thin layer of water atop the ice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These Birch Polypores (Piptoporus betulinus) tell a story.  The conk at the left was formed while the tree was still standing; the one at the right after the tree fell.  I wonder what sense of gravity controls their development on the horizontal.  Terry Stoleson pointed me to "Gravitropism". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitropism) but I never got to the equivalent of auxin in plants positively (roots) or negatively (stems) affecting orientation to gravity.  Differential growth in mushroom stems or caps (a polypore fungus being essentially a stemless cap), but still, how is gravity "sensed"?

 

Back at the trail head, I found this moth on my truck window.  Best guess is a geometrid, perhaps Operophtera bruceata, the Bruce Spanworm Moth.