Westham/Reifel Islands Sandhill Cranes.

They came from the fog.

Not really.  They wandered across the shallow lagoon to where we were standing, and I clicked before the camera had focused,

a family of Sandhill Cranes. I'm guessing these are residents of the Reifel Bird Sanctuary. 

 

They were followed by a larger group, all adults, one (just southeast of centre in the above image) with colour bands on one leg, and a blue satellite transmitter on the other (marking says HOO1).  The family group seemed intent on mooching from us, but the others, likely migrants, were more stand-offish. 

On the way back, crossing Westham Island, we saw another flock of Sandhills, thirteen birds in a muddy farm field, very close to the road.  A very craney day.

Peregrine issues.

Yes, these dowitchers are nervous.  They have Peregrine issues. They ask themselves, "Is it better to be in the middle or at the edge?"

Here's one who thinks outside the dowitcher box.  His/her plan is to hide, rail-like, amid the marsh plants.

All have reason to have issues.  The bogey-man is real and he is

HERE!

Meanwhile, in a tree at the opposite end of the Reifel Bird Sanctuary, a young Cedar Waxwing slowly molts .  His issue? Being photographed in mid-molt.

Falling pumpkin.

I spied this rotund arachnid while biking past a fence post.  It was descending fast, providing only a few seconds of photo potential.  And then it was gone, into the grass.

 

I read it as a zoological pumpkin, its descent indicating that fall is indeed here, and the unseasonably pleasant weather was about to end--which it promptly did. 

I don't know the species, although if you google "pumpkin spider," you get images of similar but different-looking spiders (Araneus diadematus).

I used to spend significant lengths of time online trying to identify unknown species.  That activity has lost its magic. So it's a pumpkin spider, even if not officially a Pumpkin Spider.

Peak Ginkgo.

The Ginkgo biloba at Paulik Park is pretty close to peak colour.  Like  most ornamental ginkgos, it's

a male tree, because ginkgo fruits have an objectionable odor, so they say.  In any case,

he is an extremely handsome tree, now thirty-something feet tall.

Every so often I get a hit on Rock Paper Lizard from someone searching for an image of a "ginkgo lizard."  (I have posted on Ginkgo before, and the blog name completes the algorithmic oops.)   I wonder what a  "ginkgo lizard" would look like, most likely a hybrid between a skink and a gecko, a saurian bullet train with sticky wheels, which doesn't sound very functional.  It would probably be yellow.

Not blending.