The weather in Estabrook Park just keeps getting nicer. Sure, it was appropriately chilly for October this morning, but the sky remains clear, and the breeze keeps getting lighter.
My first surprise today was finding this little blast from the past. I haven’t seen a house wren in weeks, so my bet is that this one is from a house up north. Their year-round range only extends as far north as the Gulf states, and this one still has a ways to go.
For comparison, here’s a winter wren, whom we might get to see all winter.
The biggest surprise of the day was catching sight of this elusive little cutie, an immature, orange-crowned warbler. Sure, there are still plenty of yellow-rumps and a few palms around, but I did not expect to be still finding new warblers this late in the season.
At the north end, I was standing way out in the river, on a big patch of exposed riverbed, when this osprey glided over, and I was afraid that it would take one look at me and just keep gliding. Today must be my lucky day, however, because it circled around and took a perch right over our riverbank where I could sneak this picture.
Finally, as I was sneaking around trying to get an osprey picture, yet another raptor glided in, this pretty little merlin, and it took a perch over the northern island, right across from the osprey.
And that’s the whole show for today, folks. I am sure there was plenty more to see, but I just ran out of time. Let’s hope the surprises I missed stick around for another day so I can find them tomorrow.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 
Hi, Andrew,On our daily morning Estabrook walk we see a type of bird and wonder what it is. Much smaller than a common sparrow, appears in groups, very active and constantly flitting about always in lower parts of tree, alternating to ground and then returning to tree. They are so fast we can’t see if they are eating off of the branches in the trees. Thanks, Fran
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Hmmm. The birds in groups these days on the ground and trees in Estabrook are white-throated sparrows and dark-eyed juncos, which are both in the sparrow family, so all approximately sparrow-sized. I do see palm warblers on the ground now and then, and they are smaller, but I’ve only seen them in pairs. There are groups of golden-crowned kinglets, which are smaller much than sparrows, but I seldom see them on the ground. I wonder which one of these you are seeing.
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