Another rainy day…

Well, now that the seal is broken, I shouldn’t be surprised by another rainy day, eh? Anyway, the radar suggested a gap in the rain starting at 8 am, so I gave it a try, and did not get as wet as Sunday. Plus, I didn’t have to wait until the end of my hike to find the sharp-shinned hawk, which was chasing, and being chased by, the blue jays in the trees just to the west of the soccer fields again. Just look at those skinny shins!

After “investing” a lot of film in getting a better sharpy portrait, I moved on and at the north end of those same fields I heard my first red-breasted nuthatch of the season, in the same trees where I photographed my first one last year, saw my first dark-eyed juncos of the season, and found this cutie, a merlin, perched high above and surveying the scene. Check out that rakish white eyebrow!

On my first visit to the river, I heard this little red squirrel’s distress call before I saw it. Perhaps all the raptors up on the bluff had it worried.

At the north end, I thought I could hear a young great horned owl again, so I ventured into the woods to see if I could get eyes on it. On the way, I encountered this beauty, which may be a common stretch spider (Tetragnatha extensa).

I did spot the owl and heard a Cooper’s hawk squawking at it, but by then it was raining too hard to point my lens at the sky, and as I waited out the rain, the owl silently flew off. A short while later, I did find a young Cooper’s hawk, which may have been the same one after the owl, but not the mature one from yesterday. Anyway, I’d guess it’s about twice the size of the sharpy, and it has neat brown teardrops down its breast instead of the sharpy’s long brown streaks.

Four species of raptors would be enough to make any squirrel cry, but today we had five. Yup, here’s a peregrine falcon high above the northern tip of the southern island.

On my second visit to the pond, I was thrilled to spot a pair of young, male rose-breasted grossbeaks picking seeds from the sumac, and I kept hoping I could get a nice picture with some dark red seeds or bright red leaves, but the little stinkers would not cooperate.

This wood duck drake, on the other hand, kept perfectly still for me against some nice green pond water.

I took one more swing by the river on my way home, and I inadvertently spooked this young green heron, perhaps the same bird we saw near there just yesterday, at the stream that runs from the pond to the river. It took off towards the river, so I carefully followed it, and given the second chance, I was able to get a nice portrait of it.

Finally, I did see plenty of tiny moths flitting about and swooping up to the underside of leaves today but not a single butterfly. Luckily, the weather was so nice Saturday that I haven’t used up all the butterfly pictures I took then, so this fiery skipper can be our butterfly of the day.