Nothing much was done on Saturday (10/19) because Joe was still in Pennsylvania on a work trip, his first since Wookie passed away. It was really weird being home alone for days and not having my Wookie alarm on standby at night. I may or may not have put a knife under the pillow because I watch a lot of true crime and one can never be too cautious.
Joe got home fairly early Sunday (10/20) morning so we ate homemade breakfast burritos before heading to Lincoln Marsh. We saw the Great Egret again, and found the Great Horned Owl.
But the most interesting thing was when we were looking for the owl we noted how quiet it seemed. And then I looked up and saw something sitting on a tree branch but wasn’t sure at first it was a bird since it was not moving at all. So I took a photo and zoomed in and it was a red-bellied woodpecker staying completely still. I told Joe “there must be a predator nearby”.
I noticed it had its head turned toward the right, and when I looked at the other side of the tree, that’s when I noticed the Cooper’s Hawk sitting there, looking in the direction of the woodpecker.
No wonder it was so quiet! The birds were trying not to become a meal.
We also watched an egret fishing. Prior to this we were looking at something in the marsh and the egret very quietly landed very close to us without us knowing. Joe turned around and was startled by it. According to the chatting guy from the other day this egret isn’t really scared of people and will get close and let people get close to it.
After visiting the marsh, we headed to the arboretum. We got there so late (almost noon) there was actually a very long line of cars waiting to get in. Every parking lot was packed, but since we mostly drove around and could park alongside the road it didn’t affect us too much. I think everyone wanted to enjoy the last nice Sunday.
Over by one of our favorite sections, Turtle Pond, was a huge swarm of Asian ladybeetles, the ones that look like orange ladybugs. They were landing all over us; it was creepy! We had to flick them off us, so we got the heck out of there.