Feisty!

The skies looked threatening from time to time this morning in Estabrook Park, but they never leaked, and the sun even shone through a couple of times. My visit got off to an exciting start when I spotted this beauty, a merlin, perched high and just east of the southern parking lot.

I had to give it a close look to confirm it wasn’t a mourning dove, and as I did, I found goldfinches, chickadees, and even a female ruby-throated hummingbird all trying to urge it on its way. You can just make out the tiny, light-colored hummingbird in the bottom right of this picture.

Here’s a slightly better look at just the hummingbird. When I first glimpsed her, I missed getting the picture and thought to myself, “oh well,” but she kept on coming back. Now, that’s what I’d call “feisty”, and I’d be hard pressed to believe it if I hadn’t seen it with mine own eyes!

Anyway, the pond was quiet, so I continued on to the river where this young, female belted kingfisher perched on a branch over the water and just on the other side of a screen of leaves from me. There was one little gap just big enough to let me peek through, yet small enough so I didn’t scare her off. Sweet! They don’t often let me get a portrait like this, so if you appreciate the pretty details, as I know I do, go ahead and click on the image, which should take you to my flickr page, so you can see and zoom in on the original.

Continuing north, I did not see any owls today, but I did see the osprey perched high above the far riverbank. No need to zoom in on that image.

Back on our side of the river, I heard a pretty song above, and soon found it coming from this striking singer, a female rose-breasted grossbeak.

After spotting her, it didn’t take me too long to find this guy, apparently even more transfixed by her siren song than I was.

Back at the pond, the wood ducks were doing their thing, …

a young great blue heron was trying hard to catch some breakfast, …

and this valiant northern flicker dad was doing his best to fill the bottomless pit that is his noisy son’s gullet.

As I neared the south end again, I found my third raptor of the day, this young-looking Cooper’s hawk, in a try overlooking the Oak Leaf Trail, which runs along the east side of the park.

On the thistles beside the soccer fields, this bicolored striped sweat bee really stood out, and I believe it is sharing that thistle blossom with a much-less-colorful eastern thistle longhorn bee.

Finally, there were not many butterflies out yet this morning, so this fiery skipper, sipping nectar from goldenrod blossoms, will have to be our butterfly of the day.