Update

For those of you who have been wondering if I've fallen off the face of the earth, I'm still here and still walking around the marsh every day. The reason there have been no postings of late is that I've had few sightings of anything close enough to get a good shot. Compared to last year, there seems to have been much less activity at the marsh. There are still ducks on the water - blacks, mallards, buffleheads, American wigeons, green-wing teals, even a few hooded mergansers - but for the most part, they stay quite a ways from shore. I have had one muskrat sighting since mid-summer. Even the chipmunks and red squirrels haven't been as plentiful as usual. I think some of the reason has to be because of the presence of the great horned owl family that nested near the marsh last winter and remained in the area until the end of the summer. I'm sure the wildlife at the marsh were easy pickings for these predators. I will continue to walk the trail until it becomes impassable, but postings from now until spring will likely be intermittent. Until next time, here's a couple of shots I got recently. The one of the cedar waxwing was taken on Halloween, a lovely day that followed the nor'easter that blew through. The bottom shot was taken yesterday. There were two black ducks perched on the stick to the right when I approached, but when they saw me they jumped off into the water and swam away. I happened to get this shot just as the second one plopped into the water.