It’s snowing so it must be April…

It was a dark and dreary morning, and then it began to snow like crazy. Luckily, it wasn’t too cold, I got out and back before the snow came, and the birds in Estabrook were as busy as usual.

This little eastern phoebe, one of two I saw, was busily flitting from perch to perch over the water in search of breakfast.

At the southern island, I looked for the great horned owl in its recent favorite hiding spot, and didn’t see it, but then it suddenly flew up from closer to the ground to perch almost in the open, as if to say “I’m here, I’m here!”

A bit farther upstream, beside the northern island, I spotted a pied-billed grebe again, and even got a better picture than last time.

The grebe submerged again, as they do, and while I searched in vain for where it might resurface, I spotted this herring gull trying to real in a fish farther out across the river.

The little brown creepers are plentiful now, and I counted three this morning, but they are still as hard to capture as ever. This one came out okay.

The winter wrens are also still plentiful and singing, but I failed to capture an image today. Instead, here are a couple nice portraits from Wednesday that I haven’t shown you yet.

Up on the soccer fields at the south end, I found brown-headed cowbirds among the robins again, but a male and female this time. Here’s a picture of the male trying his best to impress, but it doesn’t appear to be working yet.

Finally, there are plenty of geese, mallards, and even three wood ducks around, but nothing photogenic today. To tide you over, here are another pair of mallards from Thursday.