Towheeblog

Today in Rotary Park the scent of autumn was in the air. No cool breeze yet but the leaves are changing color, and ripe fruit is hanging out.
Seven-foot tall cow parsnips are desiccated, their dried leaves hanging down like crumpled brown paper. Hawthorn, blackberries, snowberries and dogwood have fruit. The bigleaf maple is pregnant with one-winged seeds. In the old abandoned orchard the apples and grapes are ripening. Interestingly there is not a single berry on any of the native Oregon grape–their response to the drought?
I would love to know what kind of fern this. It grows right along Baker Creek and has fronds at least four-feet long.

When I came near the Steller’s Jays broadcast my presence. I watched the two for awhile, adult and juvenile it seems. They held a private conversation high in an ash, singing in Pooh-like sounds. “Tiddely-pum, tiddely-pum.”

This Anna’s Hummingbird was on a sunny perch, surveying the park yesterday.