A pretty day after the storm…

It was colder than yesterday in Estabrook Park this morning, with temps in the mid-teens, but the breeze was much lighter, and the clouds were high, thin, and sparce, so the sun was able to take the edge off a bit. Plus, it wasn’t snowing.

The hermit thrush was back, but about 150 yards south of its spot yesterday, and I hear that they can range pretty far in their search for berries, so that tracks.

At the north end, one pleasant surprise was finding this quintet of common merganser hens, and perhaps they felt some safety in numbers because they were less skittish than the singles or pairs I’ve been seeing so far this winter.

The big surprise, however, was our first pair of common goldeneyes. Woo hoo! I’ve been waiting for weeks, and they are finally here.

After that, I drifted on cloud nine all the way to the pond. There were dozens of house sparrows and house finches, seemingly all chirping at once, but as I searched in vain for a tree, white-throated, or fox sparrow, there was a sudden ruckus on the island, and most of the little birds bolted. The cause was this Cooper’s hawk, who came up empty, and retired to this perch over the near shore. As with the red-tailed hawks on Saturday, you can see, from its dark red eye and lushly barred orange breast, that it’s a mature bird, and I don’t doubt that it will find its breakfast soon enough.

As I made my way back home along the river, I found the gray catbird just about where I left it yesterday. I can’t tell if it forgot to go south last fall or decided to come north early to get a jump on spring, but either way, I’m glad to see that it’s able to make things work, at least so far, and I sure hope its gamble pays off.

Finally, as I approached the far south end, I was quite surprised to find a beaver up on the ice in this weather. As with the muskrat on Sunday, I thought they waited until a thaw to come out of their burrows to forage for fresh vegetables. At least they’d get fewer icicles on their whiskers that way.

After finishing with that little stick in its paws, it must have had a hankerin’ for something more substantial, and here’s a fun video showing it standing up on its haunches to grab a nice big hunk of bark from that log over its right shoulder.

Here’s a still image, which shows how far it can reach, in case you’re not into video.

Tomorrow, Anne and I head to the Balkans for a little sightseeing. I’ve had some luck there in the past, as you may remember from our trip to Slovenia, so I’ll try to post as I go, but I can’t make any promises.