The rains also caused the dominant ant population to shift. Harvester Ants,  which were the dominant species through out the summer heat and drought immediately declined and fire ants returned. Then there are small ant hills that look like little fat hour glasses. I’ve never seen them before and can’t give them a name.

Our resident rare bird couple, two Audubon’s Orioles, were easy to spot throughout September and early October. There are several of us now who have said, “that’s the only thing they (it) could be.” They could be found all day hanging out in one of the trees in front of the Meeting House, or perched on one of the Hummingbird feeders. Once the insect population had recovered from the drought, they quit coming to the feeders, but can still be seen occasionally in front of one of the straw bale cabins. They don’t migrate and are here year round. During the fall bird migration, we had several other Orioles who stayed at the feeders for several days. They were Scott’s, Baltimore, and Bullocks. There were also Golden Fronted Woodpeckers, Black Capped Chickadees, wrens, a nuthatch, an unidentified small red bird, and lots of different LBB’s (little brown birds). Several kinds of hummingbirds were there also, dive bombing the larger birds on their feeder. A large flock of cedar waxwings camped out here for several days, munching on the cedar berries.I love to watch them. They all perch in the top of the tallest tree around, then small flocks swoop down and eat the berries for a while

In November, a swarm of bees attached to a cedar tree trunk in back of the meeting house, and covered the hummingbird feeders every day. I couldn’t find anyone to take them and after a big wind blew through, they were gone. They stayed in the area though, because I kept seeing them on the humming bird feeders.

Wildflowers were still beautiful, even after several nights with lows in the 20’s. On some parts of the ranch, the trees were decked out in their best fall color. Reds and yellows in all shades and hues from the palest yellows to the deepest reds. Some of the Sumacs were bright pink, and stayed that way  for a long time. It took a lot to finally get them to go to sleep for the winter.