As I settled in, I again focused on the sounds around me and tried to locate their origins. The birds in particular were what I tried to locate as they called out. There seemed to be more of them today than previously. Maybe they like the overcast weather? I probably missed more birds flying around me while writing, but I saw so many that it made up for that. There were bluejays and the occasional cardinal swooping around. It made me wonder just how territorial bluejays are, since other birds seem to give them a wide berth.

Almost all the leaves on the tiny tree are gone. Some shriveled brown leaves are clinging to the top branches, but other than those it looks like a large, upright twig. The tree on the hill had an array of different colored leaves. Very few had fallen off and landed on the ground. This tree seems to be holding out against the cold the longest. And the large tree next to the pond is still mostly green, the only leaves that have changed colors are the ones that had fallen off, creating an array of oranges and reds below the tree. The bottom branches were sparsely populated with leaves while the upper-half looked like it had earlier this year.

Previously inaturalist had not been able to confidently identify any of my plants, so I ran these recent photos through and seemed to get a better result on the tree on the bank. The top recommendation was a freeman’s maple, and the images of leaves from that species seem to match my tree. The app became extremely glitchy when I tried to input other photos, quitting randomly and deleting any previously input posts.

For a square meter plot, i looked at the ground in front of where I was seated. My spot is not in a forrest of any sort of heavily wooded area, so I was looking at grass. Interspersed among the blades were tiny yellow flowers that I think were buttercups. They were all around the pond as I walked back from my spot. Within my square meter there was a clump of feathers that I took a picture of and will attach below. But there was mostly blades of grass. It all looked to be the same species to me, but I must confess that I am no grass expert.

My time today was very quiet. There seemed to be less pedestrian noises and more birdcalls, which is a clear correlation. The leaves falling from the trees when a gust of wind picked up created a beautiful effect as the leaves spun through the air towards the ground. There seemed to be fewer bugs out than previous times, and this may be due to the time of day, the overcast weather, or the time of year.  There seemed to be less change within this week than previous weeks, which created an opportunity to really compare the changes.