Thursday morning, the third day of fall

 One owl at 3:10 AM, then a duet for a time. The calls were deep and I imagined large birds, a pair of Barred or Great Horned owls. Now I wonder what was going on. What was their experience at that hour?

  Day dawned, cool and fresh, enough to leave the door open and let in fresh air. Bright white and yellow eastern clouds catching the sunrise and a blue sky for the day. Crows calling in the distance at the edge of the woods and nuthatch calling from the oak by the front door. Purple finch likes holding onto the wire basket of the seed feeder. Scruffy red male cardinal, below the feeder cracks open sunflower seeds with loud chirps repeating every thirty seconds or so.

  This morning I am nature man. Sitting outside, small innocuous ants climb over my foot and up on my shin, exploring. I feel something soft moving on my neck and reach up to pull down a small yellow spider. I put it on the arm of my chair so it can go on its way. Overhead, I hear the whir of hummingbird wings 4 feet away drinking from the feeder I filled and hung yesterday. Pleased that one bird has found the feeder and hoping it returns with its friends, I do not look up and risk scaring it away.. and lo', it does return.

Loud red-headed woodpecker gives its half-musical rapid 4-5 or 6 - pulsed call, like its drumming on dead branches. Blue jay gives a two note musical nasal call and is answered by the tufted titmouse nasal scolding. I play the tufted titmouse call from Cornell two or three times on my laptop and the local titmouse starts up a five minute disputation.

Cry of red-shouldered or red-tailed hawk does not stop an incautious squirrel from jumping down from one tree and hopping across the grass to another.

By 10 o'clock the morning conversation, among the birds is over. Their topics of the day have been settled. Time now for the katydids and cicadas to begin.

Mild south breeze blows in air from the sun-warmed big grassy lawn. It will be time to go indoors in an hour or less. For now, it is all fine and wonderful out here.

Golden New Day

Golden new day beginning at the Biological Station. The sounding of the waves on the lakeshore and the fresh air, like spring days at the ocean. Last night's warm west wind produced mare's tails in the sky stretching from the sunset eastward across a third of the sky, foretelling the coming the change coming. Warm 70's yesterday. Rain and snow forecast beginning this evening and increasing through Wednesday when the main storm effect arrives. But today, in early February the door is open and I can enjoy the sound of the lake and the birds. The wind is turning to an increasing south wind. Soon time for me to pack up and start the drive north.

The Sun is Moving

Returned to UOBS after three weeks away. The sunrise is moving. I carefully located the exact point of direct sunlight from the sunrise January 5 at 117d SSE, just under a unique inverted 'U' curve of branches on an old dead cottonwood 500 feet away by the lake. Today dawn was before 7 AM with suffused light all across the mostly clear sky. Sunrise from my vantage point had moved north to 110d ESE, a 7 degree shift northward in the month. A warm beautiful 65d day expected today before cold returning.
At 10 AM a small mob of 8-10 goldfinches have taken over the hanging seed feeder I replenished early this morning. Two or three are trying to exclude others from the feeder. The smart ones are in the grass below picking out the many seeds dropped below the feeder. The flicker is calling all around the apartment and appears to hang out around this area. Meadowlark with bright yellow chest and black 'v',  foraging in the grass around the fallen sugarberry trees.

Cockleburs

Moist sunny areas at UOBS and Fobb Bottom WMA (large areas) support abundant populations of cocklebur Xanthium strumarium. Native to US and to Europe, now a cosmopolitan invasive. Flowers have no scent and are wind-pollinated & compound. Plant is an annual but produces a woody tap root. Well-defended mechanically (leaves tough like sandpaper) and chemically (produces poisonous diterpene, carboxyatractyloside ). Each bur is produced from two flowers, with one seed per flower, so each bur contains two seeds. One is ready for immediate germination within a year. The other seed is delayed in germination - up to a decade. Delayed germination - 'bet-hedging'. Plant is poisonous to mammals and can sicken or kill livestock. Poison is most concentrated in prickles of bur. Bur is very hard. Many insects feed on the plant: the Ragweed Leaf Beetle (Ophraella communa), stem-boring larvae of the Sunflower Longhorn Beetle (Dectes texanus), stem-boring larvae of the Sunflower Stem Weevil (Cylindrocopturus adspersus), Five-spotted Billbug (Rhodobaenus quinquepunctatus),  larvae of leaf-miner flies (Calycomyza platyptera, Liriomyza trifolii), larvae of the Bur-Seed Fly (Euaresta aequalis), Spotted Green Plant Bug (Ilnacora stalii), a leaf-feeding aphid (Capitophorus xanthii), stem-boring larvae of the Ragweed Borer Moth (Epiblema strenuana), and seed-eating larvae of a moth, the Pale-headed Phaneta (Phaneta ochrocephala) [ source: https://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/weeds/plants/cocklebur.htm  ] 
The poison produced inhibits growth of other plants, including seedling cockleburs.

Winter LIfe

Early January morning but life here is stirring. Early lawn weeds are beginning (sparse, scattered) blooms,  bright yellow dandelion Taraxacum, white shepherd's purse Capsella, even a few henbit Lamium amplexicaule. In the dormant trees, maples, elms and cottonwoods bright green balls of mistletoe Phoradendron are beginning to produce white masses of flowers. It will be interesting to see who comes to pollinate these. Small flies? Moths? Butterflies? On concrete porches of Brillhart Hall there is one small yellow sorrel Oxalis blooming (with lemon flavored leaves) and on the porch of the dining hall there is one yellow-flowered medic Medicago, with leaves and flower head like a small clover.
  On each of three bright yellow dandelion flowers on the south side of the Research Building I placed one drop of honey. Within 15 minutes honeybees visit, one small flower fly Syrphus, a few tiny wasps and tiny flies also. I watch the honeybees and see one black (German race) displace two yellow (Italian race). The German race of honeybees is reputed to be more energetic and aggressive.. harder for beekeepers to manage.. but producing more honey. 
It would be interesting to do some observations and see if darker black honeybees consistently displace brighter yellow honeybees on preferred flowers.
Around the buildings the southern exposures attract a big leaf-footed bug  Acanthocephala and a few large spur-throated grasshoppers Acrididae fly heavily away. The small meter square cement porch on the SE corner of the Research Building is a meet and greet place for all sorts of winter active bugs. One small milkweed bug Lygaeus, a small red ant (Formica?) one small weevil, one small flea beetle Altica. 
 Greatest diversity of notable life stirring are the birds.Turkey vultures are the easiest to notice. They are soaring over the forest and along the lakeshore, looking for a lift. They are joined by a murder of crows (6-7) patrolling the forest. One osprey, beautiful white and black in the morning light joins the vultures. Lots of smaller woodland birds. A couple of juncos feed energetically on the bird seed I scattered on the sidewalk. Sparrows, warblers, bright red headed woodpecker. (I need to study up on my bird ID. I am not good with most spp.)