A morning of many surprises…

We’re back from camping at Kohler-Andrae, and it was a perfect morning to get back into Estabrook Park.

My first pleasant surprise of the day was finding this young or female hooded merganser floating amongst the wood ducks and mallards on the pond. We haven’t seen one since early July when one hung out on the river for a few days, and they are always a treat.

The next pleasant surprise was spotting the young great horned owl again over the southern island in the river. Long-time reader, Carrie, had just come by on her way south and reported seeing an owl in the river upstream, so I had my eyes peeled. If you read the comments that readers post, you’ll know that it was Carrie and her son who finally got that dang chair out of the river. “Thanks, Carrie!”

This next surprise goes a bit beyond just “pleasant”. There was a second young-looking great horned owl on the far riverbank, and it appears to be a bit shorter than the first one. In this pose, it almost looks like a caricature.

As I tried to reposition myself on our riverbank, this gorgeous female belted kingfisher perched perfectly in the morning sun on the remains of the big dead tree off the southern tip of the southern island. Who could ignore that picture, right?

And then, the first owl flew over to join the second one, who had hopped up onto a higher branch. Once again, if you click on the image to zoom in, you can see that the second owl, on the right, really is a lot shorter than the first. I read that “the female great horned owl is larger than her mate,” so that would suggest that “Shorty” is the male, and the larger bird might be his sister. Meanwhile, you can see the kingfisher streaking across the bottom of the image as it tried in vain to persuade the owls to hang out elsewhere.

Before I could get any closer, however, surprise number four appeared in the form of this tiny red butterfly, which happens to be the very first least skipper (Ancyloxypha numitor) I have ever managed to capture on film and ID, and the tenth species of skipper butterfly posted on inaturalist from Estabrook Park, for those keeping score. (Note that they are not listed in the order in which they were identified, but there has been only one observed so far, and that was by me today.)

Okay, back to the owls. Happily, Shorty moved again so I can show them in a single image, and they don’t look like sparrows. For what it’s worth, I tried and failed to find a place on our shore from which that branch was not in front of the face of the owl on the left. Oh well. Good thing we got a great look at it earlier.

The last surprise of the morning, surprise number five, was finding this red-tailed hawk, with the help of a few alarmed robins, in the tower across the river and in which we’ve seen falcons a few times. When I checked, I was stunned to learn that I haven’t gotten close enough to a red-tailed hawk to show you a picture since back in April.

When I swung by the pond again, the merganser was up on a log taking a break with a pair of sleepy wood ducks.

As I was trying to get a presentable merganser picture, this young common grackle hopped up onto a branch just above me and was in no hurry to take off.

Finally, despite all the excitement about the least flicker, I’m gonna name this monarch, on the flowers at the pollinator garden, the “butterfly of the day.”