Preserve hike today, bright sun

Great afternoon for a hike on the Preserve, sunny, cold, not windy.  Not many birds in evidence, probably too early in the afternoon, and none on the lake at all.  One sole turkey vulture swooping and soaring overhead, good updraft today.  

Two female deer browsing in the field.  The one you see here in sunlight.

I took a pic from two hundred yards away, and as soon as the little clunk sounded, one of them looked up sharply and watched me for a couple of minutes before she went on feeding. No pix, since their camouflage worked so well in the photo you can't pick them out.

A while later, after I'd walked in the beechwood 

and come out again, she again looked across sharply, but then went on feeding. 

Beaver activity evident today, some big trees felled.  I believe there's a beaver lodge in the lake just below where these trees have been cut down, or gnawed down.

Near here were a couple of fall warblers, judging from the way they fluttered about, like the butterflies of the bird world.  One went to perch in a tall white birch, and was promptly knocked back off it by a robin already in residence.

And I sat at the edge of the lake for a bit, just watching the water. It's very deep indeed here, nobody allowed in or on it, and the fish thrive.

 A fallen cherry tree is host to an interesting colony of fungi which look very much like seashells.

As I got up, a little hitchhiker fell off my sleeve, and began to make her way to some new destination.

So then I came home to tea.