Hills sadness

There's a sadness in seeing a towering hickory on the edge of a freshly graded development. Such sights are common here on the edge of the Allegheny Plateau. Northeast Ohio once was mostly upland forest--beech, hickory, maple, oak, hemlock. The few areas that weren't cleared for farming in the first part of the 19th century are being claimed by development in many areas. Now the shagbarks are exposed. Skinny, swaying trees, most without any branches at all until two or three stories up.

Elsewhere in Willoughby Hills, a sighting of a northern mockingbird. The harbinger of global warming was seen at Airport Greens Golf Course. Also, the plague of eastern kingbirds this summer continues. Several seen at the golf course.