I waited and waited for the rain to quit this morning, and I finally gave up at 11am and went out anyway. The radar map was showing just light green by then, so I thought I might get lucky and only have to contend with mist. Well, that did not go as planned, and the rain was pretty steady as I traipsed from one end of the park to the other and back. I did manage to see quite a few birds and one medium sized snapping turtle, but I never dared take the rain cover off my camera.
Anyway, as I returned to the southern soccer fields and headed toward the weeds along the west edge, in hopes of maybe finding an interesting bug, the rain suddenly petered out, and I could see the tree line just beyond the weeds was full of birds. There were a couple of cedar waxwings, at least four northern flickers, a few robins, and some blue jays, but as I got closer to try for a picture, they all started to move, and it turns out that they were reacting to this long-legged little cutie, our very first sharp-shinned hawk (Accipiter striatus)
I’ve been hoping to spot one of these for years, and I was afraid that this one would take off before I could get a nice picture. It did flit around quite a bit, chasing or being chased by the blue jays, but it kept returning to give me another chance. The dark streaks down its front suggest that it is a youngster and so still learning the ropes.
Here’s one blue jay really pushing its luck and showing just how small these hawks are, and this one kept spreading its tail and wings, probably in an effort to appear bigger.
Here you can see four of the jays in one tree really keeping the pressure on.
Finally, here it is before it took off and left the jays behind for good.
After all that excitement, I had a new pep in my step and still some time on the clock, so I headed down to the river to see who else might still be around, and the first critter to catch my eye was this tiny orchard orbweaver.
Next was this gorgeous rack of chicken of the woods, the mushroom, not the three literal chickens we saw in the woods yesterday.
No other birds gave me a decent shot until this red-tailed hawk swooped north over the southern parking lot and perched atop this light pole.
Since I have only two birds today, here’s the osprey from yesterday standing in the water when I first spotted it.
I definitely did not see any butterflies today, and I thought this was a yellowish cabbage white or a whiteish clouded sulphur, but after a closer look, I suspect it may be a pink-edged sulphur, which we don’t get to see very often, so let’s make that the butterfly of the day.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 