A slow start but a solid finish…

It was a warm and muggy morning in Estabrook Park, but the forecast rain never arrived, and the sun eventually came out, so it was a fine morning for a visit after all. Plus, I suspect many folks were getting a jump on holiday travel, so traffic was pretty light in the park, which is always a treat.

I was happy to see a great blue heron back on the pond, but the green heron continues to elude me this month, or perhaps it has moved on for better fishing.

I glimpsed plenty of other birds, a couple of mammals, and even the snout of a snapping turtle, but I didn’t encounter any portrait opportunities until I was on my way back south after my second visit to the pond and I heard a woodpecker drumming. I checked the trees nearby without luck, but it kept drumming, and I eventually found the culprit, this male red-bellied woodpecker, on the gutter of the maintenance building. That gutter made a good drum.

I didn’t see anyone at the pollinator garden, but with the sun now out and the breeze still light, I knew it wouldn’t take long. Sure enough, barely 100 yards farther south, this tiny summer azure paused to soak up some of that sun.

The thistles beside the southern soccer fields were bustling, and here’s a clouded sulfur sulphur, …

a cabbage white making an interesting picture for a change, and …

our very first tawny emperor (Asterocampa clyton), close relative of the Hackberry emperor we first saw last summer, sipping moisture from the wet pavement.

Finally, there were also some dragonflies, and here’s our first Halloween pennant of the season.