A day or so after my outing on the 16th, I discovered that my main surgical incision had become infected and opened back up. My doctor put me on antibiotics and I forced myself to take it easy for a week to try to allow time for it to heal.

So I didn't get out again until the afternoon of the 24th. I decided to head to Colony Farm, and arrived there with the sun brightly shining overhead. It was pretty warm.

As I started down the path from the parking lot, I happened upon an interesting sight. There was a worm in the middle of the path, and a bug near the worm.

I'm not really sure what kind of bug that is. All of its legs are up near its head, which is on the left (it's facing away from the worm), and it has a multi-segmented abdomen. This might mean that it's an earwig of some sort, but not the common European Earwig. Then again, maybe it's something entirely different, like a caddisfly larva.

The worm wasn't really going anywhere, and I figure that if he were left alone, he might dry up, being in the middle of the path in the hot sun. Maybe he's already started that process; he's got a lot of rubble stuck to his body. I'm not sure if that's indicative of anything, though.

But it was not the fate of this worm to be left alone. The insect was coming over to it every now and then and doing one of two things: (apparently) biting the worm, or trying to crawl under it. Whenever it bit the worm, the worm would spasm away from the insect. Here's the insect, now facing the worm, about to take a nip.

It did this sort of thing many times, turning away, but returning to bite or crawl under, never wandering too far from the worm.

I can think of two possible explanations for this behaviour. The first is that the insect is actually preying on the worm, and in crawling under, it's trying to carry the worm off somewhere. The second is that the insect is just looking for some shade to hang out in, and the only nearby shade is under the worm (and maybe it's moist under there, too). The biting would then just be an attempt to dig in under the shady spot. Those are my two hypotheses, but I really have no inkling as to which if either is true.

After watching those two for a while, I continued on down the trail, on the dyke west of the river.. I soon came to a place where a pipe passes under the dyke and stairs lead down both sides. There I found a Great Blue Heron with his feathers puffed out a bit.

Next I reached a decision point: I could either continue straight on (vaguely north) or turn left to do a leg parallel the railroad tracks back towards the park entrance. I'd been down the path by the tracks before, but I'd never gone very far on the path in front of me. I decided that I would explore it fully; I knew that it would bring me out to a major road.

So I traipsed forward, and soon found myself by a meadow with some flowers on both sides of the path. One of the white flowers flew up and around a bit, and looking closely at where it landed, I found that it had metamorphosed into a butterfly. A Mustard White, to be precise.

The crow didn't seem to be taking his job all that seriously, and gave up within about 20 seconds of me training the camera on him. Maybe on-camera work is against crow union regulations, or something.

The Red-tailed didn't seem to mind, and he continued circling around. I got a few shots of him, but there wasn't quite enough light hitting his underside to get any good ones.

That is a Milbert's Tortoiseshell, and it was the first time I'd ever seen one. I like the pattern on the front of its wings; it looks like cat eyes to me. (And, naturally, I like cats.)

Now I was pretty excited, having seen a lifer butterfly, and when I got back to the meadow (I had left it chasing the tortoiseshell) I found a few bees in the flowers. Here's a bee of the bumble sort.

Now if I only knew what parietal denticles and basal calluses were, I'd be ready for next time I see 'em.

I continued on down the trail, happy to have seen some brown and orange snails and blissfully ignorant of my ignorance of molluscan anatomy. The trail became a trail through the woods, with trees overhanging pretty much all the way. It turned out that I hadn't realized was how far it was to the end of the trail. It was a major walk, at least in the state of health that I was in. It was probably a lot more than my doctor would have advised. Worse yet, there were almost no birds to be found.

So I was tired and a bit bored by the time I got to the road. Then a noisy bird perked me up. Looking around, I found the loudmouth—a Black-headed Grosbeak—up in a tree fairly high above me.

But at this point I was tired and at the end of the trail, and I faced the relatively daunting task of walking my tired body back to my car with few birds to look at. I took the auto bridge across the river and returned on a trail on the other side; so that at least I'd have new scenery to look at on my way back.

I walked most of the way without encountering much, but about ten minutes before I reached the part of the park that I was familiar with, I found a male Rufous Hummingbird perched beside the path.

Now, that was very cool and I spent some time chasing and photographing him. He was kind and did a lot of perching for me.

Back in terra cognita, another Black-headed Grosbeak caught my attention, and while I was watching him, a Common Yellowthroat popped out.

But that sparrow was my last bird in the park, and I was grateful to get back to my car, its air conditioner, and a bottle of water. After resting my aching legs a few minutes, I headed home.

Back at home, I found my friend Sonic in the courtyard and took a few shots of him. He came over to say hi and I caught this nice face shot as he approached.

He's a pretty friendly little guy, and seeing him was a nice end to my long day.

Hoping I don't develop bulging basal calluses of my own,
Tom