A big fish tale…

It has clouded by lunchtime already, but earlier this morning the weather was beautiful yet again in Estabrook Park, and I was happy to see a great blue heron on the pond when I arrived, …

and the view got even better when a green heron flew in to perch just above it.

The little green interloper didn’t slow down the big blue heron, however, who snagged itself this enormous catfish in short order. Now, you may have seen larger catfish in your life, and you may be thinking “that’s not so big,” but imagine that you had to swallow it whole, and your neck was a foot long and an inch wide.

Anyway, on my hike over to the river, I got to see a Baltimore oriole, who have gone quiet lately and otherwise made themselves scarce.

At the river, I checked on the barn swallows nesting under the Port Washington Road bridge. You may have been wondering, as have I, is that really a bird on the nest? Even after all this time? But this morning I got to witness a changing of the guard. One barn swallow flew in and perched nearby, the other hopped out of the nest and took off, and the first perched on the edge for a while before hopping in. So, ha! There really are real birds tending to that nest. Maybe they are working on a second batch.

Back below the falls, a non-breeding or immature spotted sandpiper, hence its spotlessness, bobbed its tail while marching up and down this log.

The belted kingfishers were busy again this morning, and here’s a female perched high over the far riverbank.

I arrived at the pollinator garden just in time to catch this tiny, banded tussock moth caterpillar (Halysidota tessellaris) rappel down from a tree above on a strand of silk, where I would have no hope of getting its picture. Thus, I hijacked the strand of silk and set the little crawler on a leaf for this portrait.

Finally, your butterfly of the day is yet another snowberry clearwing moth, who was on break so I couldn’t get you a picture of it hovering like a hummingbird as it sips nectar from a pretty flower. Maybe next time!