Mt. Pleasant – November 2020 (part 1)
/Our second field trip of the pandemic – birding at Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant. We met the group at the Robbins Skywatch – distancing and wearing masks - to watch for hawks flying over. It was not an optimal morning with calm sunny weather. In terms of numbers we saw more vultures and crows than hawks…and the high point – for me – was a raven. I wasn’t trying to get pictures of the birds…felt lucky enough to track them with my binoculars.
I took some pictures from the vantage point of the skywatch: horse nettle fruits,
Fall foliage across the meadow and on the other side of the Davis Branch,
And some new houses that have been built in the past year or so (they change the feel of that area of the meadow for me…I prefer areas of the conservancy where surrounding development is not visible).
I took a break to walk down to the Davis Branch ‘beach’ area (more about that area tomorrow). Along the way I started taking pictures of seeds spilling out of seed pods.
I walked across the meadow on the path where the chunk of quartz was taken out of the path to keep it from damaging the mower – has been just to the side of the path since. The indentation where was until a couple of years ago has almost filled in now.
On the way back to the car I noticed that there are new doors on Montjoy Barn.
I also walked around the other areas near where we had parked…taking in scenes from previous falls when I volunteered to hike with elementary school field trips: the old farm house,
The leaves under the gingko tree in the picnic area,
The witch hazel blooming in front of the Gudelsky Environmental Center.
And then we were heading home after a pleasant fall morning at Mt. Pleasant.
Unique Activities for Yesterday:
The sound of fall leaves. I ate lunch outdoors on our covered deck…listening to the leaves. The ones still on the trees are getting drier… and they make a different noise as they bump into each other than spring or summer leaves. They are the wind chimes of nature this time of year.
