A Monday Mishmash…

It is a picture-perfect Monday morning, but I’ve got an 8am online meeting, so I’ll have to wait until later today to visit Estabrook Park. In the meantime, recent days have been so fruitful that I’ve accumulated a few extra pictures that I hope will tide you over.

The sulphurs have been plentiful lately, but not quite so much as the whites, and they are a lot shyer, so here finally is a clouded sulphur butterfly on Canada thistle from Friday.

Here’s a look at the back side of that Cooper’s hawk that visited the pond on Saturday. I read that the red eyes indicate maturity, so this one appears to have been around the block once or twice.

We’ve had a pair of female or juvenile hooded mergansers visiting on the river, but they keep near the far shore, so I haven’t been able to get a portrait. Instead, here’s one of the little cuties drying off amongst the mallards and Canada geese on Saturday.

Here’s a second look at the visiting yellowlegs, also on Saturday, and in water deep enough to hide its long yellow legs.

Here’s a green heron showing us just how long its neck can get.

Here’s a family of mallards with ducklings looking nearly all grown up, but not quite.

Here’s a young robin stretching one of its newly functional wings.

Finally, here’s one more monarch picture, this time on Canada thistle.