Kettle Creek @ Buzzard Swamp

                                                        

    I hiked at Kettle Creek State park two weeks ago and came upon this bull elk sniffing the path about a hundred yards ahead. It was wholly oblivious to me so I whistled to alert it, after which it strolled nonchalantly up the slope behind it. This is the time of year that bulls assemble their harems, and in the next county the elk are somewhat tame, so one might see a bull with his harem of  females grazing a mere fifty yards from the road. This particular elk was alone and a mile from any other people or animals, so I suppose he was still looking.
    Hiking at Buzzard Swamp today the landscape is looking like early autumn, with red legged grasshoppers very common.This
Mourning Cloak butterfly will presumably survive through the winter, for this species enters diapause ( a form of hibernation) and is among the first butterflies to emerge in spring. The mating dragonflies are representative of several species active in the swamp now, and I recently learned that some dragonflies ( the blue darners for one ) migrate in autumn. Miniature radio trackers have found that at least one individual traveled over one hundred miles in 24 hours, following the wind current like migrating birds. Nobody yet knows where they go, or if they survive the winter somewhere.

    The milkweed seeds are of a kind that I have collected to plant at home, hopefully to provide more habitat for monarchs.