I did not see this coming…

Anne and I had a young houseguest overnight, and he expressed interest in coming with me to Estabrook to see the owls this morning. I warned him that we could go a little later than usual, but we would still need to have a pretty early start, and he seemed to be onboard with that when we went to bed last night. This morning, however, when it was time to get him up, Anne advised me that everyone would be happier if I let him sleep. Thus, I hustled into the park behind schedule and a bit discombobulated.

To make up for lost time, I was mostly making a beeline for the north end, but as I passed through the middle parking lot, I could hear somebody calling softly from that nice oak tree in the southwest corner. I thought it might be a gnatcatcher, but as I hunted through the leaves to make sure, look who I found instead. That’s a female ruby-throated hummingbird. Ha! I would have never seen her if I had taken my usual route at my usual time.

I also soon found who was making the soft call, and it was this hungry young, red-bellied woodpecker. “Why, hello there, sweetie.”

Since it was right on my way, I swung around the east side of the pond for the obligatory wood duck picture.

Then I headed down to the river, and the water has finally gotten low enough for me to sit on a favorite log and enjoy the view of the river between the islands. As soon as I plopped myself down, look who I saw not 50 yards upstream.

I’m not sure if that’s Shorty or his big sister, but whoever it was seemed pretty cool with me sitting there. I even had to wait a while to get a picture of it looking our way, and I was there so long, in fact, that look who else I saw on those rocks: a young spotted sandpiper. There were also a few mallards and wood ducks in the vicinity who all looked equally unperturbed. Interesting.

Then I looked around for a second, and when I looked back its way, the owl had vanished without a trace. Thus, with the owl gone, I continued north, and look who I also found lurking between where it had been and the riverbank: a young great blue heron who looks like it just ate something.

Back on shore, there were a few cedar waxwings in the tall trees around the little meadow there, and here’s an adult.

And this appears to be a youngster, which looks about halfway between the ones we saw at Kohler-Andrae and an adult.

I spent some time checking all the trees in the area for any new warblers, but I had no luck. Instead, look who flew in and perched right over the northern island: an osprey again. Given my initial expectations, this morning was turning out to be completely off the charts!

Around then I heard from Anne that our houseguest was finally up and hoping that I could provide some engineering assistance with a railroad project, so I started heading back south. As I passed by the trees atop the bluff, where I spotted the yellow warbler yesterday, I gave a quick scan, and look who was there today. My best guess, subject to confirmation by the experts at ebird.org, is that this somewhat drab little cutie with a beak full of bug is a young Tennessee warbler.

As I was chasing the possible Tennessee warbler, look who also showed up. That’s our first black-and-white warbler of the fall migration.

Then, I really had to get moving, so south I went, but I couldn’t help but check the flowers right on my route, as I went by. On the thistles beside the soccer fields is where I found our butterfly of the day, only the second tiger swallowtail we’ve seen so far this summer. What a beauty, eh?

Man, if this morning was any indication, I’ve gotta start shaking up my routine more often, right?