On Monday morning, I went to the Naugatuck State Forest to walk my usual loop and see what sort of changes Hurricane Irene's passage had brought. Aside from a few downed trees and some very, very wet paths carpeted with fallen green leaves, however, there was no great change -- it was pretty much business as usual in the woods. Some trees did succumb to Irene's winds, but not as many as I expected. Several creatures were out and about, including this Black-and-white Warbler, who was happily foraging for bugs on a branch low enough for me to take some pictures (not the clearest pictures ever, but the best I've been able to get of these quick-moving birds so far). You'd think this would be an easy creature to identify, with those fancy jewel-like orange and white spots clustered on its back, but it actually took input from multiple people on BugGuide.net to come up with an identification. As it turns out, it's the caterpillar of an Interrupted Dagger ( Acronicta interrupta), a rather plain-looking grayish moth with subtle markings -- the caterpillar sure is something to look at, though!
On my way out of the woods, the last thing I saw was this Gray Squirrel keeping watch from his (or her) post in a narrow tree crevice. We got our visit from Hurricane Irene (actually more of a tropical storm by that point) on Sunday morning. There was a lot of rain and wind, but it wasn't as bad as the weather people had been predicting, and we were lucky enough to not have any lasting damage to our apartment. Pupko g m audit i reviziya uchebnik. By Sunday afternoon, when the rain had stopped (but not the wind), Paul and I got tired of sitting around with no power, so we decided to go on an adventure. To the beach! We chose Silver Sands State Park as our destination, even though we had heard that Connecticut's state parks would be closed due to the hurricane.
Sure enough, the road into the park was blocked off when we arrived, but several other people were parking outside the gate and walking in right past a seemingly unconcerned ranger, so we did the same. This all seemed like such an insane idea -- is immediately-post-hurricane really the best time to hang out in an open space with wind and waves? As it turns out, the answer seems to be 'yes'! There were so many things to see, and we had a completely awesome time. One of the first creatures we saw was also one of the most exciting.
After we'd walked only a short distance down the road into the park, we came upon this Red Fox watching us calmly from an adjoining road. This is the first fox I've seen in Connecticut, and something about this creature gave me the impression of a teenager -- it's something in the face, I think, and in the overall lankiness -- although I couldn't say for sure whether this is actually a juvenile. The storm, it seems, was not kind to this fellow, and that looks like a pretty bad scrape on its front right leg. After a minute or so of staring at us, however, the fox bounded off into the woods, so hopefully he or she will be OK. Traktor dt 20 rukovodstvo po ekspluatacii. These are such impressive creatures, and it was cool to get to see one of these guys.