What a crazy morning…

It sure was a crazy morning in Estabrook Park today. The skies were grey, but the forecast rain never came, at least until noon as I write this, and the wildlife put on an amazing show.

The first nice treat was finding a mature bald eagle over the northern island in the river.

The first crazy sight was not one, not two, but three (3!!!) great horned owls! As I was hiking north, I could make out the same two on the island that we saw yesterday, and I figured I’d wait to get pictures on my way back south when there might be a little more light. When I was taking pictures of the eagle, however, I heard crows mobbing somebody downstream, and I thought there might be another eagle around, so I hustled back south to see. Instead, you can just make out the shape of this owl behind a narrow, vertical branch right in the middle of the picture and two of the five crows to its upper right.

I eventually returned to the north end to get a picture of the belted kingfisher I had heard.

Then I finally did my best with pictures of the two owls hiding on the southern island.

After all that excitement, I finally headed back south and took a left to swing back by the pond. On the path through the woods south of the dog park, this Cooper’s hawk swooped through and perched here for a moment.

The big surprise at the pond was finding cedar waxwings picking berries on the island.

The crazy part was finding at least two dozen of them high in a tree over the eastern shore.

I haven’t seen the hermit thrush along the river in a couple of days, but here’s one that was foraging in the lawn beside the pond today.

In between the waxwings and the thrush, here’s a female northern cardinal feasting on sumac seeds.

Finally, as if finding 3 owls wasn’t already crazy enough, look who came out of the woods to gallop past me and towards the pond! I haven’t seen a coyote in Estabrook Park since that magic morning just before I left for South Holland.

Lastly, for the Audubon bird count, which yesterday I feared might be a washout today, I counted 283 birds of 25 species, and I haven’t seen that many species since November.