Recently at Nixon Park

Clarke Green

25 Nov 2025 — 4 min read

A male Belted Kingfisher sat still long enough for this portrait. Unlike many other species where the male is ornamented and the female plainer, female Belted kingfishers sport the bold burgundy belt of feathers where the male has a white breast.

Winter deepens towards the winter equinox just a little less than a month away on December 21st. The steely grey days of winter hold their own charms, if not the best light for photography.

I wrote about mast years and Black Walnuts recently. American Beeches are also having a mast year (up 161% over normal production according to the West Virginia DNR). The seed pods are smaller than black walnuts, but they virtually carpet the ground under the beeches this year.

A Nuthatch forging, an unexpected Gray Catbird (most of them have headed south by now), Turkey Vulture, Brown Creeper, last summer's Baltimore Oriole nest, an acorn bearing Bluejay, Robin, Chickadee keeping one eye on me over their shoulder, Carolina Wren.

White-throated Sparrow and Song Sparrow.

Red-bellied Woodpeckers and Downy Woodpeckers.

Our latest galley of some (but certainly not all) of the stashed Black Walnuts I've seen recently.

A busy Nuthatch finding just the right spot to stash a bug for later.

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As of this writing 28 different species of fungi have been identified at Nixon park on INaturalist. Given that Pennsylvania hosts over 6,000 species of fungi we've identified a very small percentage of species likely to be there. This post describes three members of the fungi family

The Last Flowers of the Year

Keep your eyes open and you may catch a flash of yellow that is among the latest woodland blooms in Nixon Park this year. While maples and hickories are letting go of their last leaves, witch hazel reveals its strange yellow threads of unexpected color.

Mast Year

Have you noticed this year’s bumper crop of black walnuts? Comparing notes with a few friends, I’ve learned I’m not the only one who thinks this is a mast year—a season when certain trees seem to synchronize and pour their energy into producing an unusually heavy

This Week at Nixon Park - November 1-7

This is the week that autumn began looking a little more like winter. The thermometer fell below freezing here for the first time since last April, the wind strengthened and stripped many tress of their fall colors, the shadows are steadily lengthening as the sun tracks lower in the sky.

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The Last Flowers of the Year

Mast Year

This Week at Nixon Park - November 1-7