Monthly Archives: June 2020

The ducklings, fresh off their hot debut yesterday, where nowhere to be found this morning. Nowhere that I looked, anyway. Mallards and wood ducks were on the pond, and I did startle a great blue heron, for which I am very sorry, but he did get a nice send off from a red-wing blackbird forContinue reading “All Creatures …”

I got out a little earlier this morning, and I’m sure glad I did because I got to enjoy this spectacle of Mrs. Mallard taking her new ducklings on what might be their first tour of the pond. The light was still low, and they were always moving so my camera struggled to capture evenContinue reading “Wait… there’s more!”

You’ve got to be wondering, how long can this go on? I know I do. After all, how many birds even are there, anyway? At some point, we’ve got to have seen them all, right? Right. But today is not that day. I was by the pond, heard a new, cheerful call, simply looked up,Continue reading “New kid in town”

It was a cool grey morning, and a great blue heron and a green heron were at the pond when I arrived, but neither were in the mood for pictures. One lone male mallard flew in, but there was no sign of the wood ducks. Even the muskrat was sleeping in, it seems. Luckily, thereContinue reading “Birds take a back seat”

The recent usual suspects were all out and about. The muskrat was having breakfast on the west lawn, a few mallards and wood ducks were on the pond, and loads of red-wing blackbirds and grackles were flitting about. Meanwhile, I could hear robins, cardinals, chickadees, goldfinches, catbirds, wrens, and orioles in the trees. As farContinue reading “Sleepy Saturday”

As the anonymous volunteers at the Pedia of Wik so eloquently put it: Mating in dragonflies is a complex, precisely choreographed process.  They continue, breathlessly:  This distinctive posture is called the “heart”. Probably, don’t try this at home, kids. In any case, those are Mr. and Mrs. skimming bluet damselfly or Enallagma geminatum, as theContinue reading “Frisky Friday!”

Hmmm. Where to even start? Lets’ go with the new guys. That’s right, the dragonflies were all over the pond yesterday afternoon in the nice bright sun. On the left is a male dot-tailed whiteface (Leucorrhinia intacta) and on the right is a male twelve-spotted skimmer (Libellula pulchella). Hey! I don’t make these names up.Continue reading “Things are really starting to warm up…”

Oh sure, the birds have been laying eggs like crazy for months, no doubt. We’ve seen the goslings, after all, and I’ve even found three discarded shells on the ground already. Oh, and don’t forget about the spittle bugs. This morning, however, I was happy to be reminded that birds and bugs are not theContinue reading “Egg laying time in Estabrook”

That’s right, the King Billies are finally here, after their amazing journey all the way from the mountains of central Mexico (or maybe parts of Florida). I also just spotted one out my dining room window as I type this, so the odds are that there are more than one, and if you look, youContinue reading “Well, well, well. Look who just arrived!”

It is a cool, overcast morning with not much going on, and I didn’t capture a single image of the animal kingdom. There was one mallard on the pond, and we’ve already seen all the other birds I saw or heard; robins, red-winged blackbirds, grackles, wrens, cardinals, catbirds, etc. Instead, I did manage to findContinue reading “Slow start to June”