[audio logo] Welcome back to our season at Shaver's Creek.

This is our second fall season checking our trail cameras in Stone Valley.

And we had some new sightings and some new camera locations.

Late summer into fall usually bring some pretty heavy rains, and with so much water coming into the valley, we saw some changes to our normal spots.

Let's check out what we saw.

Ruby Throated Hummingbirds are the only hummingbird that visits us in the warmer months in the Northeast.

We see these tiny birds until about mid-October sipping nectar from flowers like these jewelweed plants in our wetland.

They really need to eat a lot to prepare for their migration, as many of them are going to end up flying hundreds of miles non-stop over the Gulf of Mexico on their journey.

This was one of our new sightings this season.

This coyote was spotted after hopping over this Creek right where our beaver dam used to be last season.

In some ways, I was a little bit sad to see that our beaver dam had broken, but it's also a natural part of the beaver dams life cycle.

Whenever the dams break, they are usually going to be creating brand new marshy meadow habitat that benefits a lot of other native species.

The loss of this stream crossing did end up creating some new challenges for the animals that had been utilizing it, such as this rabbit, which you can see in the lower left of the screen.

Now, like the rabbit, this groundhog was a little bit less than pleased to see that its beaver dam crossing was missing.

They may not be the best swimmers, but they get by.

We had our local bobcat come through again a few times, and not only can you see the gorgeous color in this clip, but interestingly, you can also see the shadow of a pileated woodpecker fly over, and you can hear the alarm calls from the woodpecker warning of this feline predator walking below.

Now, after stormwater is pushed to the tree that was the popular crossing point downstream, our bobcats found herself needing to cross Shaver's Creek the hard way.

I thought this was a really fun sighting this season.

This large beaked predators called a Belted Kingfisher, we observed it a couple of times over this fall, living up to its name.

Now you can hear the distinct piercing rattle call they do as they patrol streams and rivers hunting for fish and invertebrates like crayfish.

And we were able to see it here, hunting from this branch overhanging Shaver's Creek.

And several times it goes in diving for prey, even fully submerging itself sometimes during the hunt.

I found it really fun to see these young deer being playful and having fun together, splashing around in the Creek.

And we also saw this trio of deer in the evening wandering that same stretch of Creek, with another common visitor hanging out in the background.

Interestingly, a couple of times this season we've observed deer and a heron together.

With the onset of fall, it's only fitting that we were able to see wild turkeys crossing the Creek.

While most Americans are familiar with this bird in our Thanksgiving dinners, in the wild, they boast beautiful plumage and a complex social life.

And here we can see the hen, the mom leading her poults, which are her young turkeys across the Creek while they're foraging through it.

And we spotted this Great Blue Heron during a rain shower as it's performing a rouse where it's shaking out its wings and its feathers in order to settle all of those feathers back into place where they need to be in order to fully repel water.

We also got a bit of a treat in being able to see this Heron walking downstream toward the camera.

And when it stands up straight against the background of the reeds and grasses, you can really see how well they can camouflage and disappear in these habitats.

Finally, we got to see our local semi-aquatic weasel, the mink, showing off its agility.

These quick moving predators are just as agile on land as they are in the water, which allows them to specialize in hunting another semi-aquatic mammal, the muskrat.

Thanks for joining us for another episode of A season at Shaver's Creek.

I hope you enjoyed some of the new species and behaviors that we were able to observe this season.

And if you're interested in learning more about our local wildlife, come on down to Shaver's Creek where we're going to continue to have our regular weekend programming through December 21.

We'll see you again for our winter episode, but until then, never stop discovering.