Fall's a' Coming

Tomorrow is the first day of fall. Yesterday there was a common yellowthroat in the snowball bush front of the house. There has also been a flock of chickadees around, also spending a good deal of time in that same bush, gleaning I don't know what, when they are not at the newly filled feeders. The hummingbird families left the neighbourhood a couple of weeks ago, but we are still seeing singles coming through, every second day or so.

The asters of the field.
Speaking of singles, aside from the groups of blue jays and chickadees it was all singles in the field last Saturday. A single yellow-bellied sapsucker, a single flicker, a single wren (scolding, what else?) and others, silhouetted against the sky so I couldn't identify them.

Virginia creeper turns red first.
It isn't until this time of the year that I can see just how much Virginia creeper there is around here. The other foliage in the picture is mostly that of the wild grape--which did spectacularly this year, covering almost everything.

Occasional clumps of purple asters accent the white majority.