Happy 5th of July!

Well, it took me three tries, twice yesterday and once again this morning, to get some pictures worth showing, and here they finally are:

The wood duck hen on the pond, who started with ten ducklings just two weeks ago, is down to only four, and here they are all in a row. I also saw the hen who started with three ducklings at the beginning of June, and she still has two.

I am thrilled to report that we appear to have a recently fledged belted kingfisher on the river. I very seldomly see even two at a time, but here are three perched together, and the female on the far right looks like she’s still hoping to be fed by Mom or Dad.

Here’s a closer look at a female, and I can’t say for sure if she’s a fledgling or a parent, but the parents tend to resist letting me have a portrait like that.

Here’s a great blue heron over the pond early yesterday morning demonstrating maximal neck snakage.

And here’s one in flight over the river a little later that same morning with its neck uncharacteristically straight, as a crane would fly.

While out in Waterford with Anne’s family for the 4th, I took a walk around her folks’ place and saw a couple of sandhill cranes, but the sun was hot so the air was very wavy, and the birds were far away, so the pictures are terrible, even worse than the heron picture above. Instead, I was able to get nice and close to this female widow skimmer basking a bit in that same warm sun.

Meanwhile, there were a pair of red-tailed hawks soaring and calling overhead, and here’s one of them.

Back to this morning, I’ve completely lost track of all the mallard ducklings on the river, but here are a recent-looking trio strolling through the muck with their mom.

Then, as I was walking back south along the river, this red squirrel acted like it had never seen anything as strange as me before.

Finally, at the south end, at the west side of the soccer fields, where it is too wet to mow and the parks department lets a few flowers bloom, a stand of Canada thistle is attracting butterflies, and here’s a monarch sipping its fill of some sweet Canadian nectar.