The Dog Days of Summer are Here

We had a picture perfect-morning in South Holland today. The sun was out, the sky was blue, the winds were calm, and the air was cool. The temps started in the 50s at sunrise, and we’re not forecast to reach the 70s all day.

I headed out to the new area Anne had told me about, where I saw the egret last weekend, and I was not disappointed. I haven’t seen much in the way of shore birds there, so it was an extra surprise to spot a bunch of our first Eurasian curlews (Numenius arquata) out in the fields with the cows, sheep, geese, oyster catchers, and lapwings. How’s that for a beak, eh?

Another fun sight was the first stork nest I found and showed you back at the beginning of June. Well, they’ve been busy while we were away, and today there were three large birds on it when I first rolled up.

Then one flew off, a parent in search of more victuals, I presumed, leaving these two, which I figured were the nearly-grown chicks.

And then a second bird took off and made a couple of passes before landing right in front of me.

I can’t tell for sure, but the black remaining on its beak leads be to believe it is not quite full grown, perhaps still sorting out the flying stuff, and it sure looked pleased with that landing.

And that left just one still in the nest, with even more black still on its beak, and perhaps a late bloomer.

Lastly, storks aren’t the only ones looking almost all grown up. Here’s a bank of young swans from last weekend, when the clouds were leaking a bit.

And here’s one of their parents looking at me as if to ask, “you’re not really gonna mess with a bank of swans, are you?” “No, ma’am or sir! No way”

I took my pictures and carefully backed away to photograph another day.