We have ducklings at last! What a wonderful development, and here’s one mallard hen with her four on the river. She might actually be the hen we first saw at the pond Thursday morning seeming to shelter someone or something under her wings.
And here’s another hen with a single duckling on the pond.
The green heron we saw collecting sticks just yesterday, or its partner, was also at the pond again this morning.
There were two least flycatchers, and they seemed to spend nearly as much time chasing each other around as they did chasing flies. I couldn’t tell if love was in the air, or they were rival males.
Speaking of love in the air, on my way back to the river, I spotted these two northern flickers just as they wrapped up doing their best to make more flickers.
A bit north of the flickers was our first scarlet tanager of the season.
That area of the park, the tall trees along the top of the bluff north of the beer garden, was also a hot bed of warblers this morning. Besides black-and-whites, parulas, and black-throated-greens, all of which we’ve already seen this year, here’s our first blackburnian picture of the season.
On my second visit to the pond, this grackle seemed transfixed by something I couldn’t see, and it let me take what might be my best grackle portrait yet.
Finally, back at the river, the muddy “lawn” on which we saw this character last Sunday, was submerged today, so our spiny softshell turtle had to resort to a log to sun itself on.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 