Another fine and busy day at Beechwood. I cut some more Japanese knotweed on Marnie's Point and hauled it to the dumping ground:

It can grow pretty tall, with a thick stem ...

... which is segmented and hollow, like bamboo:

It's nice and crunchy to cut, like celery.

The goldenrod is, well, crawling with black things, which I've learned are the larvae of a kind of leaf beetle, genus Trirhabda:

A cardinal joined me for a while. Everyone likes that big dead tree on the point:

The Eastern Cottonwood tree has started sending out its fluffy seed capsules:

The lovely birdsfoot trefoil has started to bloom, but not within my jurisdiction, so I don't have to feel guilty about admiring such a beautiful but non-native plant:

I've been posting recently at a local birdwatching forum. Someone there mentioned that he wasn't seeing any good birds in this area lately, and in particular he'd never seen a pileated woodpecker at Beechwood despite our interpretive sign showing one. Of course I sprang to Beechwood's defense, noting that I've seen downy and hairy woodpeckers there, and then I saw that flicker the other day. Yesterday I posted that the next step on the woodpecker spectrum is a pileated, and I'd be on the lookout. This morning -- well!

Now, technically this was at Pottery Road, not Beechwood, but close enough for jazz, I say. I was walking home when I heard a funny noise. I kept walking as I thought it over ... "Sounds like a person clapping his hands to summon his dog? Sounds like someone whacking a log? ... Y'know, if I were a pileated woodpecker that's exactly the sound I would make." I backtracked a few steps and soon located this lovely fellow (gal?) just off the path:

I watched it for quite a while until it flew off. Continuing on my way, I found this beside Pottery Road. I'm not sure what it is, but it sure seems happy: