It was a dark and gloomy morning…

It was another grey morning in Estabrook Park. At first, the sky overhead was clear, and there was just a tall cloud to the southeast blocking the sun, but then more clouds rolled in, and it even rained for a while. Good thing for big trees.

Luckily, there were plenty of birds going about their business, despite the gloom, and my first surprise was this osprey on a perch over the river by the guardrail. It was usually looking down at the river below, probably in hopes of spotting a fish it could catch, but once in a while it would look up to check its surroundings and flash us that yellow eye.

As usual lately, there wasn’t much action at the pond, so I headed to the river, and as I made my way north, I spotted a merlin high above the northern island. Sweet! Two uncommon raptors in one morning. Unfortunately, the merlin took off before I could get any closer.

Soon after the merlin split, a bunch of mallards and a great egret, which had been peacefully feeding on the river downstream of the island, also bolted, and the cause for all the excitement, this young bald eagle, landed in the same tree that the merlin had just been in. Woo Hoo! A three-raptor day!

The eagle didn’t stick around long either, life on the water quickly returned to normal, and it didn’t take the great egret long to come up with this tiny fish.

There were also a pair of kingfishers flitting around and making a racket, but the female eventually caught her own fish. I already mentioned it was dark, right? I slowed the shutter down as far as I dared, but still the ISO was through the roof, and that’s what I’m blaming for this grainy picture.

On my way back south along the river, I spooked this sharp-looking female rose-breasted grosbeak from foraging in the weeds beside the path, and she perched here for a moment before fleeing further to safety.

The black-capped chickadees are here year-round, of course, but they are seldom out where I can get a good look at them. Today was really shaping up to be my lucky day.

As I passed by the soccer fields at the south end, I thought I spotted a song sparrow perched in a sapling coming up through the patch of weeds. Upon closer inspection, however, it turns out to be a Lincoln’s sparrow instead. Cool. We’re in their fly-over territory, so we only get to glimpse them for a while in the fall and then again in the spring.

Finally, as I was leaving Estabrook, I spotted this gray-cheeked thrush (Catharus minimus), “one of the shyest and hardest-to-identify of the thrushes”, in a sapling between the Oak Leaf Trail and Wilson Drive. They are also just passing through, but they have a heck of a lot farther to go: all the way to the Amazon rainforest. Yikes! “Rest up, little cutie, safe travels, and we’ll see you again in the spring!”