Ahhhh. That’s more like it. A sunny day at last, after seeing on the news last evening that we haven’t had one yet in December. With a decent twilight, I was able to get out nice and early, and the sun was just poking through the trees by the time I reached the pond. The scene was pretty quiet, as usual these days, with just a few mallards and the half-dozen geese who have been there often recently.
I continued on to the river and found this pair of muskrats just off the southern tip of the southern island. Of course, I was focusing on the near one, which is in the dark, and didn’t notice the far one stand up on its haunches in the golden morning sunlight. Darn tunnel vision.
At the north end, there were more mallards and geese and our one male belted kingfisher.
As I was trying to get a nice kingfisher picture, I almost didn’t see who was nonchalantly lounging on the shore of the northern island almost directly behind him. Ha!
On my way back south, the sun had risen a bit and was now nicely lighting up the great horned owl, who might have perched a lot less deeply in the sticks in hopes of soaking up some of that sun.
The big surprise for today was this wood duck hen all by herself on the river below the falls. “We have a guess as to why the drake was on the pond for so long, but what are you doing here, Honey?”
Speaking of the pond, I stopped by again, and a third muskrat, one of the two we’ve seen there just this week, was making another grocery run.
Finally, as I started to head back home, look who I found sleeping away the beautiful morning, perhaps after a busy night carousing.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 