[Journal entry for November 6., 2023; Normal Bird Sanctuary, Middletown, Rhode Island]. My sister Lisa, who is a member, took me on a tour of this Bird Sanctuary. We drove by Hanging Rock (on Hanging Rock Road) as we approached. It is an overhanging cliff of Purgatory Conglomerate, an erosion-resistant rock that forms a low, north-south oriented ridge that crosses the sanctuary. We parked at the main entrance off of 3^rd Beach Rd, and after checking in at the Visitor’s Centers, began a hike through this natural area. We sighted a Whitetail Deer as we crossed an open field, and then headed into the woods via a pedestrian path. The woods are showing fall colors – mostly ambers and browns, for it is late in the season. We passed a wetland, set a deep narrow valley, and a standing stone called Indian Rock. Ledges and stone walls in the area are composed of Purgatory Conglomerate, a grey fanglomerate with clasts up to about a foot in diameter, with pronounced metamorphic stretching. We then took a series of hiking trails that wound through the woods, some over puncheons and one with a small footbridge across a stream. We wound up on the Hanging Rock Trail and followed it until it ascended onto the Hanging Rock ridge. The view from this high point is very pretty. One can see southwest into the deep valley beside the ridge, as it opens out to the south into a phragmites marsh with a small pond, with Sachuest Bay and the ocean beyond. The trail follows the ridgetop all the way to Hanging Rock, but the footing on the rough conglomerate is difficult, so we contented ourselves to climbing to a high spot and sitting for a while, admiring the view. We then backtracked and took the Valley Trail through the woods west of the Hanging Rock ridge. It is very narrow in places, with steep walls on both sides. We passed a place where quartz boulders littered the ground. They are from a quartz vein that is weathering out of the ridge. We waked to the end of the trail, close to the phragmites marsh, where the ground is very damp. We then headed back, crossing the dam that impounds Red Maple Pond. We watched ducks paddling across its duckweed-covered surface. We saw relatively few birds on our hike; a few small brown birds, a hawk and the remains of a larger bird that a hawk had eaten (or so we supposed). Back at the entrance, we watched a flock of chickens peck around in their coop. 2:00.