Spring makes a quick comeback…

Sure, at 22°F, it was a bit chilly this morning for the middle of March, but the sun was mostly out, and the breeze was very light, so it was quite a nice morning for our Weekly Wildlife Walk in Estabrook Park. There were eleven of us all together, and we identified 25 bird species.

On my way to the parking lot by the beer garden to meet everyone at 8am, I got to see our first deer in a while at the far south end.

North of the falls, I found a red-breasted merganser drake back again.

Once we had the group together, we went back to the river to see the merganser, who was kind enough to have stuck around, and the next fun sight was this red-bellied woodpecker peeking out of the nesting cavity it was excavating.

Here it is letting any potential bidders have a good look at the entire package deal.

We couldn’t find the hooded mergansers that I had also spotted earlier, but once our walk was over and I went back to the river to see if I could get a picture of the flicker that some folks had seen, the little stinkers showed up again, and here’s the drake.

By then, the morning had warmed up quite a bit, enough to turn the frozen river path back into mud, and that must have been what a pair of eastern bluebirds had been waiting for. Anyway, here’s the male.

Same for the phoebe, even though I had told folks to keep an eye out for it. Oh well.

I eventually gave up on the flicker and headed back to the pond for one more look, and on my way, I came across this trio of killdeer appearing to practice some complicated performance on the softball field.

Finally, when I turned around, I found this red squirrel in the tree above me who seemed to be as transfixed as I was by the killdeer choreography.

Lastly, I just read that “Looking at Images of Nature Does Something Powerful in The Brain,” so perhaps this can be your dose for today.