Plenty of action on a rainy Wednesday.

I got off to a slow start in Estabrook Park this morning. It wasn’t raining very hard, but if I get any drops on my lens, I’m pretty much done for the day, so I waited out the precipitation. When I finally did venture in, I was happy to find plenty of critters still out and about. Perhaps they had waited out the rain as well and were busy making up for lost time.

I was particularly surprised to find this young male yellow-bellied sapsucker on the east side of the pond so late in the season. I expected that they had all already flown south, but I underestimated this procrastinator.

There are also still wood ducks on the pond, and here’s a pair already taking their morning nap.

There was a flock of hungry cedar waxwings around, which is always a treat, and here’s one scarfing down berries on the west side of the pond.

I eventually headed to the river, and I was greeted by this young and curious red squirrel beside the water.

A bit farther north, something spooked this young white-tailed buck on the southern island, and then the poor thing got photobombed by a great blue heron. He’s having a rough morning.

At the north end, another merlin was perched high above the northern island. Perhaps it is one of the pair from yesterday.

There was a big fish, probably chinook salmon, breaking the surface of the shallow river water.

On my way back south, I came across this dark-eyed junco on the side of the bluff coming down from the beer garden.

Just a bit farther south, this ruby-crowned kinglet was foraging in a willow tree right along the river.

I normally don’t take a lot of eastern gray squirrel pictures, but this one munching on a nut really dared me to.

Finally, here’s another hermit thrush, but this one was really doing its best to show off its distinctive cinnamon tail.