2 Short 2 Sweet

It was cloudy, cool, and breezy this morning, and I didn’t have a lot of time before class, but it wasn’t raining, so I took a quick look to see who was around in Estabrook. Most of the recent regulars were up and about, and there were even some exciting new arrivals.

Along the river, I spotted this gray catbird beside the trail, and thankfully had a nice empty chip in my camera with plenty of room to capture this image. I had glimpsed a catbird yesterday, but this is our first image of one for the season. I can’t wait for them to start singing again.

By the pond, I spotted one, at first, and then two yellow warblers foraging on the lawn, and they were willing to get close to each other for this shot, but they wouldn’t let me get any closer to them.

Back at the river, I was thrilled to capture some images at long last of a stunning male American redstart (Setophaga ruticilla). I’ve glimpsed them briefly before, and captured a few images of females last fall, but this is the first time I’ve had a good look at a male in all his finery.

Finally, I stopped by the robin’s nest along the river, and she wasn’t home at the moment, but she finally has an egg, so here’s our first robin’s egg of the season! Woo Hoo! We could start to see hatching in about two weeks.

Lastly, long-time reader, Erica, sent in a link to a fascinating article about how wood duck hens often lay some, or even all, of their eggs in the nests of other wood duck hens. Ha! Maybe that pair of wood duck hens on the pond last summer had a deeper bond that we realized. Here’s an old picture of them preening each other.

That’s it for today, I’m afraid, another short one, but the forecast for tomorrow is cold but sunny and still, so I have a hope of getting some nice pictures to show you.