A quick visit before the rain…

I hit the park early this morning, in hopes of beating the rain, and despite the dark skies, or perhaps because of them, I was surprised by how much there was to see.

As I was bent over to fish some pieces of broken glass out of the lawn across the parkway from the soccer fields, I heard a huffing sound and looked up to find this darling a bit put out by my presence. I was already close to the ground, so I just sat down, but she was having none of that, and here she is mid-foot-stomp.

The pond was pretty quiet with just a few wood ducks and the sole hooded merganser, so I left them be and headed to the river. Across from the southern island I interrupted, by accident!, a pair of king fishers fishing, and here’s the one who hadn’t taken off yet by the time I got my camera aimed.

I had hardly gotten a dozen paces farther north up the trail when a second deer came out of the brush on the island, gave me a glance, and then had a sip of water. Once she slaked her thirst, she continued to pay me no mind and nonchalantly proceeded to munch on the shrubbery. I’ve seen a lot of river and island deer over the years, but I don’t believe I’ve ever seen one take a sip until today. You know they’ve got to because they don’t have the thumbs necessary to open bottled water, but still, until you see it, you can never be quite sure.

When I reached the meadow at the north end, I checked the wildflowers for butterflies, as usual, and spotted this monarch seemingly just resting on a milkweed leaf. It was a good morning for sleeping in.

At the far north end, as I scanned the Canada geese and mallards on the river around the northern island for new or interesting birds, look who also came out for a look, yet two more deer. I believe we’ve seen this pair before because his asymmetrical antlers look familiar.

As I started to make my way back south, a mallard hen, who’s been keeping her ducklings in the shallow water on the east side of the northern island for the past couple of weeks, started quacking, so I started looking to see if I could find the cause for her concern. It took me a while, but I eventually stumbled upon this Cooper’s hawk perched high over the island. I wonder if it is the same one who visited the pond last week.

Finally, the skies were getting darker, so I hustled south, but not so fast that I didn’t have a moment to watch this great blue heron act like it had a lock on something to snatch out of the water, but then decided it was nothing after all. Psych!

Lastly, while I was following the clearwing moth yesterday, I took a moment to capture an image of this little skipper butterfly who was also feeding on the bee balm. It wasn’t until today, when I didn’t have a post already jam-packed with butterfly pictures, that I thought to check what kind of skipper it is, and it turns out to be a tawny-edged skipper (Polites themistocles), which I do not believe I’ve ever seen before. Huh.

Oh, and since someone mentioned snowberry clearwings, here’s another picture of the one from yesterday. What an amazing creature, eh?