Late Summer, Early Evening

We took a walk in "our" natural area last evening. We hadn't been out for weeks because of the unremittingly high temperatures. But the weather has been cool and cloudy for the last three days, and we took advantage of the break to enjoy the late summer meadows. Another heat wave starts this Sunday.

Dozens of Chimney Swifts (Chaetura pelagica) were wheeling through the skies, but there was no sign of migrating Common Nighthawks (Chordeiles minor), which usually pass through singly during the last week of August. The swifts roost in the evening in a tall chimney at a local college. It's a local birdwatcher's hotspot to set up a lawn chair and watch the birds plunge into the chimney at sunset.

Many bumblebees were already drowsy on the goldenrod (which I think is Wrinkle-leaf Goldenrod [Solidago rugosa]). It never fails to amaze me to see bumblebees in the evening clinging motionless to goldenrod, obviously intent on spending the night there rather than returning to their holes. Some were still foraging actively, though.

Jumpseed (Polygonum virginianum) leaf edges always seem to curl up near the end of the growing season. I don't know if it's lack of soil moisture or whether it's just in their nature. This patch reminded me of variegated poinsettias.
The natural area has an old farm pond where children can angle for sunfish with barbless hooks. I think each one of the sunnies in the pond must have been caught a dozen times.

A Novel Hunting Technique

Immature Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) hunting on the ground

Last evening, after we both got home from work, we went for a walk at our favorite natural area. Rounding a bend and entering a field, a hawk swooped down out of a tree and onto the ground. I thought that it had caught prey, but the hawk didn't take off again immediately.
Instead, it stayed on the ground for about five minutes, walking and hopping around in the matted grasses. I suspect that it was trying to catch mice or voles that it could hear scurrying in the vegetation but couldn't quite see.
It probably would have remained there longer, continuing the same behavior, except that other walkers approached from the opposite direction. The hawk stayed on the ground for several minutes even while the other walkers looked on, but either it finally got spooked or was unsuccessful in its pursuits and it took off and perched in a tree far across the field.
Further into our walk, along the creek that flows through the preserve, we came upon a fly fisherman trying his luck as the sun was going down. While the stream is too warm to support a self-sustaining trout fishery, the local chapter of Trout Unlimited stocks the creek each year with non-native Brown Trout (Salmo trutta), and some of the fish actually seem to persist in the creek year-to-year despite its warmth and generally urban character.