The weather has been a little bit of a rollercoaster lately, and today was an “up” day. Yay!
The red-breasted nuthatch was in the same tree as yesterday, at the north end of the southern soccer fields, and I was able to get a picture today, although it isn’t as nice as the first one. You sure can see its “red breast” though.
As I approached the pond from the river, I caught a glimpse of a small raptor, and I hoped it might be our sharpy again, so I followed it back west across the baseball field, only to find that it is one of the young Cooper’s hawks we’ve been seeing lately. It is still a pretty bird, but just not as rare.
At the river again, I found this great blue heron on break from fishing and perched in the sun high above the southern island.
Farther upstream, I found a young yellow-bellied sapsucker who is starting to show a bit of red on its head.
There are still plenty of warblers around, and I saw black-and-whites, palms, and redstarts, but this bright yellow one stumps me because it had a black tail like redstarts, but redstarts aren’t all yellow on the underside. Hmmm. It sure is a pretty bird, though.
On my way to the pond again, I inadvertently startled another deer. Actually, I bet it startled me more because it came bounding out of the woods and ran right past me. Happily, it wasn’t too scared, because it also stopped not too far away to see what I might do next. “Naturally, I’ll try to take your picture, Silly.”
I had almost reached the pond, for the first time, when a couple of crows started making a ruckus, and I saw a third one fly in to join the fray, so I hustled back toward the beer garden to see what they were all excited about. It turned out to be a Cooper’s hawk, perhaps the one I had just seen earlier in the morning, and I couldn’t get a good shot, but I did manage to capture the crow looking all shiny.
When I finally did reach the pond, it was the same old crew, a bunch of wood ducks, a couple of mallards, and a great blue heron, so I headed back to the river, and on my way, I finally got a picture of one of the brown tree creepers I’d been hearing lately.
There was no sign of the young green heron today, but there were a slew of little birds busily foraging, and this acrobatic black-capped chickadee made the pretty picture.
Finally, the skippers and sulphurs were back, but the pretties butterfly today was this monarch. Gotta enjoy them while we can, right?
PS. If you’ve been wondering if the Cooper’s hawks and the great horned owls we’ve been seeing ever do more than perch and squawk or cry, as the case may be, then head on over to instagram to see the amazing picture young Mr Ehlers has posted: https://www.instagram.com/p/DAL6mTHxi02/
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 