August 31st. An afternoon walk. Some Red Maples (Acer rubrum) are showing Fall color.

 

Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) with wings held apart to dry off.

 

To cool off, it was holding its mouth open and puffung its cheeks in and out, a behavior called a gular flutter.

 

Gular flutter is roughly equivalent to panting. Backlit, note how the orange neck skin shows through the feathers.

 

 

 

A male Meadowhawk Dragonfly (Sympetrum sp.).

 

A male Blue Dasher dragonfly (Pachydiplax longipennis).

 

Burning Bush or Winged Euonymus (Euonymus alatus) showing early Fall color.

 

It's highly invasive.

 

Next a brief stop at Day Meadow Brook pond where the trail crosses River Road. Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta).

 

There were several groups of immature Wood Ducks (Aix sponsa).

 

September 1st. Back at the same River Road pond where Wood Ducks (Aix sponsa) were still around. Female at left; male (note the red eye) at right.

 

Immature female.

 

 

 

 

 

August 2nd. A Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) far across Raymond Brook Marsh.

 

A couple of young Wood Ducks (Aix sponsa) around...

 

...until they got spooked.

 

An inchworm caterpillar (Family Geometridae) hanging from a single strand of silk. This is often a defensive strategy to flee a predator, then pull itself up to the spot where it was feeding, eating the silk strand as it climbs.

 

I visited several spots along the trail in the afternoon. These fungi were on a downed log near Lyman Viaduct.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next stop at Day Meadow Brook pond where the Wood Ducks (Aix sponsa) were in the usual spot. This one trying to doze.

 

 

 

No luck...

 

...as it was soon disturbed by a sibling.

 

Took awhile...

 

...but they gradually settled...

 

...with some space between them.

 

(Speechless.)

 

Another sibling returning towards the log...

 

...and more quarrels.

 

A final stop near where a path from River Road leads towards the Blackledge River Bridge. Spotted Knapweed (Centaurea maculosa) still has a few flowers.

 

An invasive Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle (Harmonia axyridis).

 

A male Northern Paper Wasp (Polistes fuscatus).

 

The male face is yellow and the antenna are strongly curled at the tips.

 

This is a female.

 

Dark face and nearly straight antennal tips. Of course only females can sting since the stinger is a modified ovipositor. I'm pretty sure males are only produced at the end of the season, just in time to mate with females which after fertilization overwinter and produce new nests in the spring.