It looks like the haze we’ve been enjoying for days is starting to fade, and some blue sky is returning to Estabrook Park. Things were quiet at the pond with no herons or kingfishers, that I could see, and the same four wood ducks as yesterday.
On my hike back over to the river, I came across this curious scene, a female, red-bellied woodpecker on the side of a tree but close to the ground and looking around to see if the coast was clear.
Then she flew down to the paved path to feast on something in the edge of the grass along with a slew of grackles. I have not seen that before. I wonder what she found there. I hope it was delicious.
At the edge of the bluff, very near where I had seen the kingbird yesterday, a goldfinch in all his breeding plumage finery was oddly perched where we could get a nice, good look at him for a change. “Thanks, Buddy!”
Down the bluff a great blue heron was fishing at the falls again, but I didn’t see it catch anything.
At the north end, there was the usual cast of dozens of geese and mallards, a couple of killdeer, a couple of sandpipers, and a couple of herons in the tree, but no eagles or osprey, so I headed back south. Along the way, I could hear a few bullfrogs singing, and this might have been one of them, but he was silent while I could see him.
At the far south end, I was hoping to find some butterflies, but all I could find was this damselfly instead. I believe it is a female American rubyspot (Hetaerina americana), and if so, it is supposed to be “the most widespread of the North American rubyspots, … reported from all of the lower 48 US states except Washington and Idaho.” I believe we’ve seen one before, and it was a male that time.
Finally, this rabbit was hiding in the shade pretty well except for just a couple of details.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 