It looked like it was going to rain on a quiet and sleepy Monday morning in Estabrook Park after all the excitement of Fathers’ Day and the Summer Solstice this past weekend. I did see a couple of the baby bunnies just north of the beer garden again, but there were no deer on the lawn nor waterfowl on the pond, and we’ve already seen all the birds I heard, so let’s let the sleeping critters lie and take a look at who was out struttin’ their stuff in the bright sun yesterday afternoon.
First up is this handsome common buckeye (Junonia coenia) by the pond. So handsome, in fact, that it was featured on the 2006 United States Postal Service 24-cent postage stamp. Who wouldn’t like to have that on their resume, right?
A little less flashy, perhaps, but just as deserving of our appreciation, don’t you think, is this common wood-nymph (Cercyonis pegala) at the edge of the bluff north of the beer garden. Later in the day I saw plenty more of these, but none would sit still for me, so I feel pretty lucky that this one did.
There’s another sweat bee in the park, and this one is the bicolored Agapostemon (Agapostemon virescens), the official bee of Toronto, if you can believe it, on another lance-leaved tickseed (Coreopsis lanceolata) blossom that we first saw on the steep slope from the beer garden down to the river last Wednesday.
Finally, down on the river, I spotted this little caravan of Canada geese in various stages of adult coloration. It looks like a couple of scrawny teenagers shopping for school clothes with their mom, eh?
That’ll do it for today. Don’t forget to mosey on over to the pictures page and cast your votes for which you like to see in our forthcoming 2021 calendar. We’ve gotten some votes already, but we could sure use a few more.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 