Finally back in Estabrook and Sedona part 2

The rain is done for now, and it became a beautiful morning in Estabrook Park after the clouds drifted away and the sun came out.

It didn’t take me long to find this female rose-breasted grossbeak looking to bask a bit in that nice, warm morning sun. We hardly see them over the summer, so I expect she’s from north of here and already on her way south for the winter.

I found only one wood duck on the pond, so I headed to the river, where I found a dozen more, but the less-common bird was this one, darling pied-billed grebe. It was busy gulping down a fish when I arrived, but those pictures didn’t come out too great, so here’s one from when it was done with breakfast and looking more presentable. It too is probably already on its way south for the winter.

On my own way back south, I came across this interesting scene in which several blue jays, of which one is pictured with its back to us, were trying to convince an American kestrel to look for breakfast elsewhere. The red structure they are on is a radio tower across the river.

While that was all unfolding above the far riverbank, a northern cardinal in mid-molt was feasting on a grape right in front of me.

Down the bluff from where there is a guardrail between the parkway and the path, a female or immature male bay-breasted warbler was playing coy.

Finally, a female monarch butterfly was sipping nectar from a bull thistle blossom in the weeds along the west side of the soccer fields.

Those are just the highlights from Estabrook because I still have some pictures from Sedona to show you. After our guide, Tim, showed us all the birds he could find near our Airbnb, he took us to the Sedona Wetlands Preserve created by wastewater effluent and now a National Geographic Geoturism Destination.

There we saw several American coots, just like the ones that visit Estabrook from time to time.

A sora, which we also see in Estabrook but not quite as often.

This amazing-looking grasshopper, which is probably a green bird grasshopper or green valley grasshopper (Schistocerca shoshone)

And nearly a dozen black-necked stilts, which I have seen in the Horicon Marsh and in South Holland but not yet in Estabrook.

There was also a redhead duck, a killdeer, a spotted sandpiper, a pied-billed grebe, three eared grebes, and a great blue heron, among several others, but they all kept too far away for my camera. Instead, I’ll leave you with this picture of a painted lady butterfly.