On Saturday, I spotted this ghostly bird out on the polder, just chillin’ amid the geese and the cows, and I was all excited that I had spotted someone new, maybe a gyrfalcon. Welp, it might be a new individual to the area, but it is merely a “pale morph” of the common buzzard, and we’ve seen plenty of its darker siblings over the summer. Nevertheless, it sure is pretty, eh?
Workers have been dredging a lot of the little canals that run through the fields lately, and the piles of canal gunk attract many birds, including grey herons, storks, and egrets. Here’s a grey heron, standing on said gunk, taking a break from hunting in the warm morning sun, perhaps because it now has a bellyful in need of digestion.
I only butterflies I saw this weekend were a few small whites, but the couple of dragonflies I saw looked more interesting, and this one appears to be a common darter.
Finally, there are still plenty of blue tits around, and this one was foraging furiously. It appears that they will stay with us through the winter, as their North American cousins, the chickadees, do, so that’s something to which we can look forward.
This one was even kind enough to take a second to pose for a portrait. Thinks, little buddy!
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 