Kohler-Andrae 2024, Day 3

I expect this to be my last morning at Kohler-Andrae, and I opted to give the Black River Marsh another try. Oddly enough, I managed few photographs even though I saw more bird species than last time. So it goes.

I was happy to see the pelicans again, and this time they flew right over my head, so I had a chance to get a closeup of one in flight. Check out that “96.1-114.2 in.” wingspan. That’s 8-9.5 feet for the folks in the back.

I hardly saw a wren out on the marsh, although I heard plenty, but thankfully, the blue dasher dragonflies were willing to fill in. In fact, I got such a nice portrait that I can see their compound eyes have two distinct resolutions.

Here’s a closeup that shows it better. The ommatidia are much coarser above those tiny black antennae than below. If you click on the image, which takes you to the original on flickr, then you can zoom in and really see the dividing line between coarse above and fine below. I have not noticed that before.

Anyway, I was thrilled to find this ruby-throated hummingbird again. I saw it in the same tree on Tuesday, but my pictures were just not up to even my loose standards. This one is still not my best, but plenty good enough for this operation.

That’s it for today’s pictures, but luckily, there are still some good ones from earlier in the week. Here’s a young green heron on Tuesday and perched nicely in the sun on a wire above the old park road.

Here’s one more look at a marsh wren, also from Tuesday when they were plentiful, doing its signature spread-eagle perch.

Here’s a stunning goldenrod crab spider (Misumena vatia) lurking on the underside of what looks like a joe-pye weed blossom.

Here’s another look at the very obliging thirteen-lined ground squirrel from Friday, doing its best prairie dog impersonation.

Finally, here are three sandhill crane silhouettes as dawn broke over the dunes Friday morning.