The clouds are a little thicker, and the air is a little cooler, but the wind has calmed down a lot in Estabrook Park since yesterday morning, so all in all, not a bad morning. I didn’t see much until I got to the pond, but that place was hoppin’!
All the ducks were agitated and clumped together near the far shore, and when I turned my binoculars on them, I could see the cause, a mink was crouched on a little near-by floating log. By the time I dropped the binos and grabbed my camera, however, it had already slipped back into the water, so no mink pictures today. ☹️
Instead, there was something else still swimming low in the water, and that turned out to be a muskrat, which you can just make out at the right edge of this image, and which also contains three mallards, the woodie, and the hoodie all together as never before!
I have read that mink will attack muskrats, so I can’t tell if the mink was after the muskrat, and the ducks just take exception to minks no matter who they are after, or the mink was after one of the ducks, and the muskrat just also happened to be at the scene. In any case, the ducks were doing their “circle-the-wagons” thing, and apparently mergansers also know the drill.
After all that excitement, I took a seat on the bench to see who else might be around, and I was able to get yet another nice wood duck picture, …
and one more hooded merganser portrait.
Then blue jays started making a ruckus of their own above the far shore, so I hiked around to see what had them in a tizzy, and it turned out to be a Cooper’s hawk, but I couldn’t get a good enough look to know if it was the same one as from yesterday. The blue jays, on the other hand, which I usually find very camera-shy, did not care and were finally distracted enough by the hawk that I could sneak this picture.
Eventually, all the excitement subsided, and I continued on to the river, where I was happy to see a great blue heron fishing at the falls near the far shore again, and stunned to find a second one fishing just below the railing right in front of me. How can I pass up a close-up like that?
What’s more, there was a third heron at the downstream end of the southern island, and a fourth at the downstream end of the northern island. What a treat!
Finally, I was bummed not to find the great horned owl again today, but I did find this belted kingfisher perched over the near shore, so that will have to do.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 