There was an abundance of twigs available close to the ground due to a significant event that probably occurred in the past few days:
I was very shocked to see the giant ash tree down in the middle of my site when I got there this evening. It took down quite a bit of other plant material with it as well.
This was going to happen at some point or another, and I am glad I was not underneath it when it did.
Near the base of the tree I found a branch that seemed to indicate pileated woodpecker activity, which looks somewhat recent.
I finally got a good look at the twigs of the ash, as well as the other mature trees in the marsh.
A faint “who cooks for you” caught my attention, and I crept through the valley leading away from the stream and captured this grainy photo of the culprit:
I have been hearing a lot of barred owl activity in Centennial woods lately, and on the day of the squall, possibly around the time the ash fell, I recorded this video across the clearing from where my site is:
At the end of September last year, around the same place this was recorded, I came across a gray squirrel evading one of the owls as I walked down the path:
Other than the barred owl and the possible pileated woodpecker activity, there were quite a few crows in centennial and I got this picture of two of them flying overhead. I had been seeing a lot of chickadees as well, but not near my site in particular. There were no tracks in the snow that I could discern, and no signs of amphibians in the cold, half frozen mud.
