A raptor hat-trick!

The gorgeous weather in Estabrook Park just keeps coming, and look who was back on the pond to enjoy it this morning, our little woodie. I wonder where it was yesterday.

As I was trying to get a decent picture of the hoodie and woodie together, a red-bellied woodpecker perched above me on a light pole and watched the sun rise.

Down at the river, a great blue heron was fishing at the falls again, but I thought the better picture was the male belted kingfisher perched over the far shore.

At the north end, the big surprise was the osprey landing on a branch above the far shore with its fresh catch.

In this picture you can see that it is holding up its fish in its left talons to take a bite, which makes it easier for us to see.

Here it is pausing from breakfast to take a look around.

On my way back south, I stopped to check on our owl again to see if I could get a better picture because it was really buried deep in the sticks today, and this is the best I could muster.

As I was concentrating on that, a pair of crows flew in, and I figured they were there to mob the owl, but I never saw it flinch. Part of the reason, I soon realized, is that they were there to mob this Cooper’s hawk instead. Ha! That makes this a three-raptor day!

After all that excitement, I continued south along the river, and just when I was about to turn inland to visit the pond again, I came across my third and most-photogenic great blue heron of the morning fishing right off the near shore.

I did eventually make it back to the pond, and this dark-eyed junco rewarded me for my effort with a nice portrait.

Finally, this female northern cardinal might wish I didn’t capture this, slightly-less-flattering image.