End of Summer Skink Onions and Twig Girdler

Back to the Woods for the first time in two months. A warm 85 F day with a dry SW wind. In the Woods it felt like the end of summer and not yet the start of autumn. At the NE Gate there was a rustle of dried post or bur oak leaves down on the trail, but most of the canopy leaves are still up and green (95%). Only the last flowers were still blooming, patches of white Eupatorium boneset. The Woods were dry. The NW pond shoreline was about 10 feet away from the full shore at the end of the stones. The surface of the water was alive with feeding minnows, most likely Gambusia mosquito fish. I saw no dragon or damselflies, probably consumed by the minnows. Along the Wash only the deeper pool by the old ragged steel culvert still had water. The mud around it was full of tracks of racoons.
The pool above Island Crossing had disappeared. In the soft mud that remained, several Vespula yellow jackets were gathering moisture or mud.  Not so common to see them in the Woods.
Leaning on a sugarberry I inadvertently grabbed a stinging hymenoptera of some sort. Good sharp sting to my finger. Like a honey bee, maybe a bit stronger. I did not see it. First sting from hymenoptera this year. Lasted maybe a minute or two sharply.
At the southern end of the Tree Loop there was a pile of scat, probably racoon. Full of rounded seeds of sumac? fox grape seeds? sugarberry? This is a time of plenty of food when residents of the Woods will be feeding and fattening up.
I saw just two white-tailed deer in this mid-day walk. Almost no spider webs across the trail.. and no agelenid funnel weaver spiders. First time the SW corner has not had a big population in autumn in the past few years. Few other insects flying, one Polygonia question mark butterfly, a few mosquitoes by the West Dune trail. On the West Dune trail there were red berries of Cocculus snail seed.
  By the Elm Bridge I was surprised and delighted to see lots of Allium spring onion clumps growing and looking healthy.
The Parthenocissus Virginia Creeper up the biggest NW cottonwood by Carpenter's steel stake had gone a rich wine red color but by the NE gate they were still mostly a mottled green.
I walked almost all the trails except the northern Ravine Trail and some of the SE. There were lots of smaller branches down, including two different bunches of green pecan leaves cut by twig girdlers.
Only one big pecan branch blocking the trail required a saw to clear.
  The Woods are changing seasonally and developing successionally, gradually growing older and changing character with the months and the years.