Life on the pond settles back down.

We got one more beautiful morning out of the recent streak, which was a nice treat. Better still, our young night heron was back on the pond so we can have one more look at the little cutie. Here it is on the west side of the island.

And here it is just off the west lawn, just shy of the morning sun, which would have been the cherry on top. Next time.

Only three other folks have weighed in on whether it is a young yellow-crowned or a young black-crowned, and among the four of us, three agree on yellow-crowned, and so I’m gonna count it as the fifth heron species we’ve seen on the pond. Crazy, right?

Meanwhile, the wood duck population is back down to the original five now-almost-grown ducklings, their mom, and her special friend. Perhaps the others just found it too crowded and headed back down to the river. Anyway, for reasons that remain a mystery, the remaining seven all came over to say hi as I was trying to take the picture of the heron above. We might not have seen them all together like this since they all used to hop up on the big log in the northeast bay to preen after breakfast.

They all seem like quite the contented little family now. Mom and her special friend were even back to their mutual preening.

Sweet, eh?

Finally, the mallards are down to a nice even foursome who did manage to line themselves up nicely the morning sun.

Then they most have noticed the wood duck convention and all steamed over to see what was going on.

And those are all the pictures fit to print today. I did stop by the river but didn’t see a thing. Same goes for the soccer fields. One monarch was sunning itself in the grass, but I let it be and came home before it got hot out.