At last…

The clouds were thick again this morning, so I waited until 8am, at which time I figured I had as much light as I was going to get, so into the park I went.

The first treat for me was this perfect arrangement of wood ducks on a rock in the river.

Just upriver from the ducks, I found a trio of spotted sandpipers, and two of them managed to get in the same frame, at least for a moment.

A female belted kingfisher was perched over the far riverbank, but the river was pretty narrow at that point, so I was able to get a nice-enough portrait.

At the midpoint, where I would usually turn east to stop by the pond, I spotted an interesting critter out on the river, but it was pretty far off, and after an expedition to get a closer shot, I had two grocery bags full of left over fishing tackle and supplies, so I popped up the stairs by the southern playground just in time to spot these two in front of the maintenace building as they dashed for the woods along the Oak Leaf Trail. Ha!

The park was filling up with farmers’ market goers by then, so I went right back down to the river, and soon came across at least one and probably two recently fledged blue jays, still sporting some fuzzy baby feathers, who were insistently crying for more food.

At the southern island I spotted that interesting visitor again, and I got a better picture, but still not the best, so I continued to the north end. At the meadow just south of the old boat launch, the parks department has inexplicably resumed mowing the wild flowers, but not yet all of them, so I searched for butterflies and eventually decided to take pictures instead of the pollinators I could find, which happened to be bumblebees and here’s one on a crownvetch (Securigera varia) blossom.

After counting the killdeer and mallards on the river and being stunned to find not a single goose for the first time since I returned home in April, I came back south and look who I found in the grass. Do you recognize this one yet?

At the southern island again, the visitor was as shy as ever, but here it is, a juvenile or female hooded merganser, hanging with the mallards but not quite fitting in.

As I approached the south end, I came across another striking butterfly. Can you ID this one?

Finally, at the very south end, I was able to get my first monarch butterfly picture of the season.

It was very flighty, but it finally landed where I could get a decent picture.

But only one!

I’ve got a couple more presentable pictures, but I don’t want to overload you today, so I’ll save them in case I need them tomorrow.