I am trying to take advantage of a rainy day to get caught up with fall photos and give my laptop some space. It’s almost a daily challenge to manage enough room for photographs and now that the oscillating fans have been relegated to the basement for storage until next summer, it’s quiet enough to record the inside birds with music again, which means inevitably taking up more digital space somewhere.

I realized that there were leftovers from the end of September which was not all that long ago, but before the cold snap and the leaves changing. These photos are from September 27. I will follow very shortly with those from two days later. I just couldn’t manage them all in one post.

Below is a native plant, White Snakeroot or Ageratina altissima, which began to suddenly explode everywhere. It took me a while to stop confusing it with Boneset. If nothing else, the broad, heart-shaped leaves set it apart from Boneset.

The clouds were interesting that morning.

Bay-breasted Warblers come in a variety of subtle color variations in the fall and this year was no exception.

The Ruby-crowned Kinglets were higher up in the trees.

Black-capped Chickadees always announce their presence to me, whether they make themselves visible or not. This visit I had a couple opportunities to photograph them.

Here are two more Bay-breasted Warblers.

A brief look at a Rose-breasted Grosbeak gave me two images I can’t decide between.

Perhaps the highlight of that morning was hearing and then seeing a Red-shouldered Hawk. Actually, the Red-shouldered was in the sky at the same time two Red-tailed Hawks were flying around as well, and the Red-shouldered was interacting with one of them, which gave me an opportunity to compare. The Red-shouldered is smaller and darker-appearing of the two in the photos below. But perspective is everything as in the last photograph where the Red-shouldered is somewhat in the foreground it appears to be the same size.

I’ll be back very soon with photos from two days later – September 29. Gotta be good to my hard drive and give it space for everything else it does.