Pictured: Our creek with gold Japanese Knotweed and green brush mixed in.
| Mushrooms are starting to pop off! The woods are turning green and gold while the creek log trail-cam had a lot of action this past week. Birds are hard to spot as always but we never give up! Enjoy! Amy | Table of Contents: ~ Spying on Wildlife: Trail-cam Videos! ~ The Birds: Discovering with the Merlin App ~ Woods Walks: Hidden Finds & Nature ~ The Blog: Upcoming Editions |
Spying on Wildlife: Trail-cam Videos!
The creek log had a lot of action last week! So many kinds of birds: Song Sparrow, Bewick’s Wren, Stellar’s Jay, Varied Thrush, and Red-breasted Sapsucker. Also had a family of squirrels hop across it. The rest of the trail-cameras just had lots and lots of deer!
The Birds: Discovering with the Merlin App
Earlier last week I finally spotted the White-crowned Sparrow at mom’s bird tree feeder. Only saw one in the mix of all the House Sparrows, Song Sparrows, and Golden-crowned Sparrows!
While on the woods walk Shane and I saw a lot of the common birds we see all the time down there. Kept hearing the Golden-crowned Kinglet but I never confirmed it’s identity visually. I kept seeing a small brush bird but it moved so quick I couldn’t get a reliable look at it. Didn’t hear a single Evening Grosbeak either, which is odd. They are supposed to be common here until the middle of October. Hope they come back, I’d love to see one!
Woods Walks: Hidden Finds & Nature
Saw these mushrooms coming up in the barnyard this last week too. Since there are no trees nearby with a relationship to these, I am thinking they are likely Meadow Mushrooms (Agaricus sp.). Agaricus are very tough to identify though so I am not 100%. They can either be edible or very toxic so there you have it haha.
Images from our woods walk on Sunday. It’s not super common to come across a new bloom this time of year but there it was! Hall’s Aster (Symphyotrichum hallii). Also noticed the Hazelbrush getting catkins that will open up in the early spring next year.
I would say the color of the woods is green and gold right now. The Oregon Ash and the Japanese Knotweed are both quite gold while the oak and many other trees/plants are still fairly green.
The Blog: Upcoming Editions
We’ll see you next week on October 5th for the next Hedge & Hollow blog post, where we see what new changes are happening in the woods!
Be on the lookout late autumn (when the oak and maple leaves change color) for our seasonal Horticulture & Harvests blog post, where we talk about final harvests for the year and what can still be planted!
The next Hair Sheep & Hens blog post will come out early November where we will discuss pasture lockdowns and see what the sheep were up to during their last few pasture rotations leading up to it!
In case you missed the latest blog posts:
- Hedge & Hollow: September 21st 2026
- Hair Sheep & Hens: Late September 2026
- Horticulture & Harvests: Mid-Autumn 2026
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