Autumn friends and a new trail

 

 This would be the brash Blue Jay. We normally have around nine at the feeder these days. They generally fight each other for the prime position on the feeder. The losers are left to feed off the ground. Not a bad situation, really.

 And this is the Camp Robber! A gray jay, formerly known as the Canada Jay; but my favourite name for it is the Whiskyjack, after my preferred beverage. It's called the Camp Robber because this gregarious, friendly bird will easily come to feed from your hand or snatch things from inside your tent or cabin. A robber disguised as a sweet little thing! We seem to have three of them mooching around the place right now.

 

And because I can't resist a little environmental destruction, yesterday I created a new trail in the bush. The autumn leaves are still falling and making for lovely scenes on Turtle Bay. The new trail meanders along the shoreline. In the spring parts of the trail will surely be underwater.

The environmental destruction is minimal. I clear only enough for a person to walk through and particularly I remove any branches that would poke out our eyes. I do not remove fallen logs because I want to witness the taking back that the forest does, once a tree falls. Mushrooms, moss, lichens, small critters, they all use the logs. In the spring the hollow logs boom with the sound of ruffed grouse showing off.

And the glory shot. This is Turtle Bay. I named it that, after the many painted turtles that make their home here. We have snapping turtles in the lake and swamps around here, but we don't see them much at our place; a place shared by humans, turtles and quite a few others.