Diario de mamestraconfigurata

An interesting fall, not so much with what I saw, but in terms of weather. After August, it got rainy and cool here in Manitoba, after a warm, dry summer. Farmers are not too pleased about it - they have been slow to get their crops off the land. Our depleted ground water is probably replenished.

Along Churchill Dr. not much interesting in terms of wildlife. The insects seemed to scramble for the safety of diapause, and the birds seemed to migrate in dribs and drabs. Nothing in terms of waterfowl (besides the mallards and Canada geese), and the migrating passerines began to trickle in, then buggered off when it got too cold. I've seen a few warblers, but not the usual range. I saw a brown creeper outside the window I am typing this now, but by the time I got the screen off, the camera ready and climbed out onto the porch roof, it decided to fly across the road, and I lost it (the bird, not my mind!).

The river has been low this summer. During the wet spells it rose 1 or 2 m, but seems to be receding. Not as low as mid summer, but it's lower than I have seen it for a few years.

One observation of note was a Red-Bellied Woodpecker in late October. Although it was technically outside it's range, there seems to be a breeding population in S. Manitoba. I also saw a yellow rumped warbler today, I suppose a late migrant. The dog (Finn) took a charge at it, and it flew up into a tree, where amazingly it hung around for a bit and I managed to take some photos. Grey days are the worst for taking photos of birds in trees - usually they come out quite dark, and need a lot of processing to bring out their details. I'm working with a rudimentary photo processing program, and cannot really get things to where I would like them to be. C'est la vie.