Nature Notes: Nature around my house

I've been excited by each sign of fall although it's barely begun. The dogwood trees are great for a preview since they change so much ahead of the rest.

The dogwood berries are already red which happened rather quickly.

The holly berries on the other hand are still all green. I'll look forward to their change in color.

I love the way some leaves have several colors, almost as if they were painted.

I've noticed a lot of webs around my house although hard to get good shots of them.

There are so many different moths flitting around but they are so fast that I only get shots of a few.

I like the way the one below has a red dot on the gray.

I have a lot of different bird baths but there are still arguments over them.

When the brown thrasher above is in the bath it's rare for any other birds to share with it. The female cardinal will share with small finches and sparrows (next two shots below) but gets into arguments with towhees.

Sometime a male and female cardinal will share the bird bath but I don't think I ever see two male cardinals in the bath together.

The female cardinal and the immature roufus-sided towhee (next two shots) chased each other away from the bird bath.

They didn't seem too mad after they got away from the water and noticed berries to eat.

While the larger birds were settling water disputes the small ones moved in.

Sometimes as many as five small finches and sparrows will happily share a bird bath.

The male cardinal, like the brown thrasher, tends to get the bird bath to himself although occasionally shares with some birds.

The catbird had a turn in the bath and then flew to a spot where it could munch on berries.

I thought the towhee below was injured but when I opened the door he flew off.

To see what is going on in the natural world at other bloggers, visit the home site for nature notes (new link goes up by Thursday).