Closer to a lamb than a lion, I’d say…

We had a great morning for the last weekly wildlife walk of March in Estabrook Park. Sure, it was cool, cloudy, and breezy, but I didn’t feel a drop for a change, we were often able to hide from the wind, and the sun slowly emerged. Ten folks came out to join me, and we identified 32 bird species.

After seeing the screech-owl so many days in a row, and even glimpsing it this morning on my way to the parking lot to meet the crew, I thought for sure that I’d finally be able to show it to everyone. The little rascal had other plans, however, and had already amscrayed by the time we arrived.

The first exciting bird we did see was this young red-tailed hawk on the hunt beside the river, and it did one heck of a job waking up the grackles and red-winged blackbirds that hang out there. Here it is keeping tabs on one of them.

We also glimpsed a pied-billed grebe and a red-breasted merganser around the islands in the river above the falls, but I failed to capture either on film. Instead, my only other presentable picture from our walk today was this brown-headed cowbird, species number 31, as we returned to the parking lot for everyone to go their separate ways. As you can see, parts of the sky had become a pretty blue by then.

Since I still had some time on my meter, and the day was starting to warm up a bit, I headed back to the river after everyone left to see if I could get a picture of that grebe.

The grebe had other plans, however, which gave me time to spend with this little cutie, the boldest golden-crowned kinglet I may have ever met.

In fact, there were quite a few kinglets foraging for bugs on the sticks and branches along the river, but not all of them were golden-crowned, so here’s our first ruby-crowned kinglet picture of the season. It was super nice of them to strike nearly the same pose so you can get a good look at the features that distinguish them besides the color of their crowns. For me, the markings around the eyes are also a dead giveaway.

The phoebes, who have been here a couple of weeks already, were also plentiful, and here’s the one who put on the nicest show for us.

Not to be outdone in the insectivore bonanza, there were even several brown creepers, and this one was making sure that no crevice went unchecked.

Finally, I couldn’t believe my luck, as I was approaching the volleyball court at the south end, and I heard my first yellow-bellied sapsucker call of the season, which I’ve been waiting weeks to hear. Even better, I was actually able to lay eyes on it, despite it doing its best to hide, and so was my camera’s autofocus, despite the last cloud in the sky doing its best to provide a challenging background.

Lastly, if you thought March was amazing, as sure I did, then hold onto your hats because here comes April!