The birds continue to pour in…

You know what happens when you let a spigot run for a couple of days? You get a boatload of whatever was coming out, and that’s what we’ve got in Estabrook Park right now, a boatload of new birds. I tried to count them all this morning, but I’m sure I missed some, and here are the ones I didn’t miss or at least made a nice picture.

There are Baltimore orioles singing in seemingly very corner of the park, and the blue sky this morning helped make a nicer portrait than the one I had for you yesterday. That one was more of a placeholder to commemorate the first sighting of the season.

The pair of green herons were on the pond again this morning, and this time one showed how long their necks really are.

Yikes! Right? I’d hate to be a frog in range of that. Wouldn’t you?

Meanwhile, down on the river, we’ve got our very first batch of ducklings, a trio of mallards.

While the hens are all busy hiding in the bushes to incubate their eggs, the drakes are left to their own devices, and this pair were really getting into it.

The solitary sandpipers are still around, and I counted two for sure and maybe four.

The house wrens have been around for a week or so, but they are elusive little stinkers, and I haven’t managed a decent picture until this morning. Here’s one excavating a nesting cavity.

And here it is announcing a vacancy.

The Canada geese keep hatching goslings, and here’s a gaggle of thirteen (13!), perhaps in direct answer to my musings yesterday. Since females lay “two to nine eggs with an average of five“, this is probably a blended family, which I read is called a “crèche“.

Can you find all 13?

The exciting new bird for today (on top of all the warblers, of which you’ve seen a lot lately), is this darling sora (Porzana carolina), looking a little bewildered after its long flight in from the Gulf coast, Central America, or even South America. This is only the second one I’ve ever seen and the first adult, so I immediately dropped the garbage bag in my hand, grabbed my camera, and started snapping away. Thank goodness some came out. Phew!

Finally, a brand-new bird for me today is this sedge wren (Cistothorus stellaris) checking out the wet field/shallow marsh beside the river. I sure hope it finds Estabrook Park to its liking and sticks around for the summer. Don’t you?