October keeps up the pace…

The beautiful weather continues, and it was another wonderful morning in Estabrook Park.

My first greeter today was this beaver on its way home after a night upriver chewing on bark.

From the river, I headed to the pond and was thrilled to get one more chance to photograph a red-breasted nuthatch. They are stunners, eh?

At the pond, the trees were full of kinglets and yellow-rumped warblers. Here’s one of the latter.

The flickers have been quite busy lately, flocking up before heading south for the winter, but this guy, atop the bluff north of the beer garden, seemed to be just watching the sun rise.

Down the bluff and beside the river again, I could hear a winter wren or two, and when I took this picture, I thought I had captured one. It turns out, however, that this is a female common yellowthroat, of similar size, shape, and foraging habits, and only related at the level of “order”, but this might be the nicest yellowthroat portrait I’ve managed to date.

Farther north, this hermit thrush put on a nice little show, posing one way and then another, and I believe this is its best side.

I did see two of the gadwalls again, but they were even farther away than yesterday, and I didn’t see anyone else interesting, no eagles, merlins, or kestrels, so I headed back south. On the way, I kept my eyes peeled for an owl or a winter wren, but look who I saw instead.

Sure enough, an osprey was flying upriver, so I hustled after it in hopes of finding where it parked, and here it is.

After the osprey, I gave another shot at getting back to the pond, but on my way, look who flew over. They might resemble Canada geese at this distance, but they are actually double-crested cormorants. I sure hope one will stop in the river to sample the fish before they’ve all gone south.

As I approached the baseball field, I noticed a large bird swoop by, and I spotted it perched in the hedge of tall tree between the field and the dog park. It looked big, and I thought it was the young, dark eagle from yesterday, again. Once I got closer, however, it turned out to be this gorgeous red-tailed hawk. It looks similar to the one we saw last month, but I can’t say for sure that it is the same.

When I finally made it to the pond, I found the great blue heron perched on the same branch as yesterday, but today it had one heck of an itch to scratch.

The wood ducks did not appear to be excited about anything today, and they were just quietly going about their business. I found this pair up on the lawn foraging for fallen cherries or crab apples.

Finally, I didn’t see any damselflies today, but I did see a few dragonflies, and I didn’t see any monarchs, but I did see this fiery skipper on a dandelion, so this is gonna have to be our butterfly of the day. Best to enjoy it while we still have it, right?