The clouds were thick, but the winds and the temps weren’t too bad, and the rain hadn’t started yet, so it certainly wasn’t the worst April weather I’ve seen in Estabrook Park.
Before I even reached the river, this reddish-brown fox sparrow reminded me that they haven’t all left yet.
The ice that may have driven off the coot was all gone, but I didn’t see any indications that the coot had returned. Happily, the kingfishers will be with us all summer, and here’s a female fishing over the river.
As I approached the pond, I ran into one of the regulars from our weekly wildlife walks, and despite there being two of us, the screech-owl graced us with its presence. Now at least one wildlife walker doesn’t think I’m fibbing about that little rascal.
When I reached the pond, I was just in time to catch one of the muskrats making a grocery run, which I haven’t seen since last November.
Back at the river and above the falls, I did catch a glimpse of the grebe and a young red-breasted merganser drake, but they stayed too far away for pictures, and there was no sign of a great horned owl, so I turned back south. Just a bit downstream of the boardwalk below the beer garden, I found this rusty little beauty foraging in the dead leaves beside the water, and it turns out to be our first field sparrow of the year. We are just north of their year-round range and into their breeding range, so “Welcome back, Cutie!”
Back beside the wide and slow part of the river below the twin towers, I ran into another frequent wildlife walker with her husband, and they reported seeing a warbler on their way north. When I guessed that it was a yellow-rumped, and I showed them a picture, they agreed that “that was their bird.”
Thus, I nearly held my breath as I continued south in hopes of spotting it, and it is a good thing I opted to breathe, because it took a while. After about a quarter mile, I finally caught a flash of yellow flitting down the riverbank ahead of me, and I had to follow it for another tenth before I could finally get my camera on it. “Ta da!” Give a hearty Estabrook welcome to our first warbler of 2025.
Finally, just as I was about to exit the park by the south parking lot, I noticed this crow who was far more intent on extracting some calories from the scrap in its beak than it was worried about me, so it let me take a picture from uncharacteristically close. “Thanks, Pardner!”
Then I had to run to campus to meet with a client for a couple of hours, so I’m still working on this as the rain finally arrives late in the afternoon, but from the comfort of my dining room table.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 