The edge of the creek woods forms an unbroken line from about Deer Ford down to the south fenceline...except for this gap (a gap in the old drift fence) into the tiny remnant of original prairie that we call the Entrance Meadow. On an autumn afternoon, with sunlight slanting through leaves turning gold, it looks to me like a gateway into a magical world.
The grassland part of the 80 acres has an increasing number of milkweeds of various species. Though toxic to domestic livestock, milkweeds are important to butterflies and other wildlife, so I've encouraged them. This seedpod from a fall-flowering milkweed (don't know which one) is just releasing its many seeds, each on a silken parachute.	A male and a female Vesta Crescent, Phyciodes vesta, pose in the seedhead of a switchgrass. The one with tattered wings fluttered at the other occasionally, suggesting that it's a male.
We've had a flock of robins around in the past week or so, coming to drink at Owl Water. I had not realized that the tips of the breast feathers were actually edged with white. Perhaps the white wears off by spring?
First-winter White-crowned sparrows have brown and beige striped heads, instead of the dramatic black and white of adults. Even the first-years have Attitude, though.	Late one afternoon, this Eastern Phoebe hunted insects from the top of the brushpile and landed momentarily on this cedar-elm seedling in the last rays of sunlight.
Song sparrows outnumbered even white-crowned sparrows this week in the southwest meadow, and I have lots of song sparrow pictures. This one posed in full sun on a cedar branch sticking out from the brushpile.	Later in the week, a "grab shot" with the zoom lens handheld, in evening light, captured this song sparrow against a background of fall colors. I really didn't expect this shot to turn out, but the color was so rich I tried anyway.
One evening, another sparrow on the same cedar limb was silhouetted against the soft colors of the meadow grass. dainty sulfur.
On the way home early in the week, near sundown, I spotted something green attached to a stalk of King Ranch Bluestem. It was a cool evening, and this Dainty Sulphur, Nathalis iole, had folded its wings into an uncharacteristic shape (at least, on the basis of pictures I'd taken earlier, on a warm day a month ago) and mimicked a green leaf.

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