What's been going on

My pet hummingbird is singing on a branch, outside my window.  Big drops of rain beginning to fall, the sheltering leaves becoming fewer and fewer as we move deeper toward winter.  Still, it sits there, poofing out its feathers to look like a chickadee.

Walked the lake on Friday, pausing to watch a heron wander back and forth through the water.  Eventually, it grabbed a flat yellow fish and swallowed it whole, its throat bulged out.  Must've been a perch or sunfish of some kind.  Some hundred meters later, I came across a youngish raccoon, its face wet from bathing.  We both stopped abruptly, having shocked one another.  Then the raccoon looked out to make a run for it, but there were too many dogs, so it lumped its way beside the lake until it found a tree to hide out in.

After injuring my foot over the summer, and stating that wildlife would have to come visit me, we had a mother and two baby raccoons as regulars, both across the courtyard, and then rolling around in the grass outside the building at work.  Then, a baby gull showed up late in the summer (our yearly pet.)  It arrived on a day I was on leave, but survived the weekend, and I saw it on Monday.  It was fully gray, and looked old enough to survive.  Late in the afternoon it was practicing flight, by jumping off of a raised platform and flapping its wings.  I left the water bowl out over night, we were in a heat wave at the time.  It crossed my mind that maybe I shouldn't.  In the morning, the bird was dead, ripped apart by the mother raccoon, presumably to teach its offspring how to hunt.  They left it under my co-workers window.  They came back to feed on it, and I knocked on the glass; the mother looked up at me with it's bloody face, then proceeded to go wash its paws and face in the water bowl.  (So, then doubly regretted leaving the water out.  Though, I think it was more a matter of unfortunate timing, I think the raccoons only came through on certain days, and the fifth day of the gull, the unfortunately coincided with that the raccoons' rounds.)  I called someone to come remove the carcass and the bowl, they eventually came a couple of days later and took the bird, but only kicked the water bowl over, to drain it.  My co-worker volunteered to wear gloves and pick it up to dispose of it.

The rabbits re-appeared, a couple of babies hanging out in the grass.  I walked out one afternoon to see one gasping for breath, and called someone about that, but it died shortly after.  All I can think was that it got poisoned, someone handled it, or a dog got to it.  It had been fine earlier in the day.  So, all in all, my summer was full of animal trauma.

I have yet to see the resident deer.  The raccoons continue to wander past, now just the two younger ones, without the full reign of the world they formerly had during the summer.  The wildlife keeping to the shadows now that the students have returned to the area.

The summer birds have long gone, Western Grebes, and Common Mergansers have returned.  No sign of the Am. Wigeons, yet.

The rains fall and the wind blows; each day the trees hold fewer leaves, more open to the sky.  Nature prepares for sleep.