Murder!

 1:00 to 2:00pm, 68 Degrees, Clear Skies, Wind 5 SSE, Bar 29.96 fall

Many things going on in The Little Forrest. I went out yesterday, but did not post. I am turning my phone off on Monday nights and not back on until Wednesday morning. That includes computers, tablets etcetera. Analog for a day. Richard Louv in the book Last Child in The Woods says television steals our time. Nature amplifies it. Micah Mortali's modern version says Screens steal our time, Nature amplifies our time. I think of it as Screens depletes our souls, nature feeds our souls. So, I am doing less screens. 

When I am in my sit spot I have Merlin on. I check occasionally to see what birds it has heard. Also, I check if I hear a bird and am not sure what it is. Otherwise, I am not using my phone. I took a paper and pen to record what birds I heard and saw. I think my hearing was heightened by not having Merlin on. I identified 10 birds. the only one I did not see was the Carolina Wren. It was a really good experience. I will experiment more with my use/non use of Merlin. 

The crow above was part of a Murder! A group of crows is called a murder. They do not live in The Little Forrest. However, they do come over when they are chasing something out of their woods over across the Ocean ave. They were  lynch mob angry chasing a red-tailed hawk. I saw them chasing it on the north side of The Little Forrest. The hawk stopped in the trees. The crows were not having that. And chased it off towards the south. I got to see the chase through the trees as the leaves are falling. it took three or four murder mobs before the hawk was gone. It was nice to see what was going on. In the summer because of all the leaves it would have been a mystery. 

Merlin heard 20 species. I saw 10 of them.