Wednesday, October 28, 2015

A Second Look--October 28, 2015

The remnants of Hurricane Patricia are coming today bringing with them a lot of rain. It's amazing to me that a system that started in the Pacific could make it all the way across the country over the varying topography and still have this much rain left in it. Weather and climate are such complex things, I'm not sure we'll ever totally understand them. Or at least that's how I felt after I took a class about them in college.

The leaves are at their peak now and color abounds. Such a beautiful sight everywhere you turn. Since dark is encroaching the day much earlier, I haven't had as much time when I'm at home to do Second Looks. In fact, I didn't go to the back 40 of the yard at all this week. However, I will share with you a few pictures on trees in the front part of the yard as they are showing their colors. There is about a week's range in the pictures and you can see how much the colors changed during that time.

Also, when we visited a local park on Sunday, I talked to the naturalist there about the curious-looking spider I showed you recently during another Second Look. With her help, we determined that is was a lattice orbweaver spider. Although the internet is very helpful with these questions, talking to a real person is even better.

Here are a few things I saw this week 
during a Second Look.







Female downy woodpecker.





Lattice orbweaver spider (Araneus thaddeus) The white thing on it's back is actually its abdomen. Once again, I've never seen anything like that.



10 comments:

  1. Ooh, it's great that you found someone to help ID the spider. Bet you both had fun talking about it.

    Love your autumn pictures. Such a pretty time of year. We are also getting rain from Patricia today--I got a bike ride in yesterday so I could experience the outdoors this week. And the rain held off till after my daughter's Trunk or Treat event at school--I'm thankful for little mercies. :)

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    1. Glad that the rain held out for your daughter's event. Is she going to do any other kind of Trick or Treating?

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    2. She will go Trick or Treating on Saturday, but it is a rainy forecast and mom has little tolerance for long soggy candy excursions ... so I think we will go to a few neighbor's homes and call it good.

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  2. I'll have to remember that spider and keep my eyes open for it.

    We're having steady rain today too, not sure but heard it's connected to the hurricane as well. I love all the different shades of the leaves you were able to pick up with your camera. Our trees are changing at such widely different times that it's mostly green here with spots of color. I'm looking forward to the sugar maples changing, that's when we get the most vibrant colors.

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    1. The maples do give the best color-especially the sugar maples. Some years, our sweet gum trees also are pretty good. I'm surprised that your trees are behind ours because you are north and inland from us. But you never know.

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  3. Beautiful! Our maples have the best color also but the jury is still out here. The winds and rain have knocked down so much. Time will tell, but it feels like I am going to be raking much earlier this year

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    1. We do some raking because my husband finds raking soothing, but there are too many leaves for us to do them all. Mostly we use the mower to mulch the leaves back into the grass. Still hoping your best color is yet to come.

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  4. How gorgeous! The second to the last picture is especially amazing. I can't believe that's in your yard! It looks like a park or something.

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    1. I am lucky that I have such a nice view out of my kitchen window. I gave a friend a walk around the yard the other day and she described my yard as a park. She is a very orderly person and I don't think she could do the same thing with her yard, but I think she appreciated the trees, fields, and some of the unkempt areas that we keep for wildlife habitat. (Or should I say, some of the unkempt areas we haven't gotten around to cleaning up yet.) It's always good to see your things through others eyes whether that is good or bad.

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