Some highs and lows…

It has gotten cool and breezy now, but earlier today the weather was as nice in Estabrook as yesterday, so I was crossing the Oak Leaf Trail into the park just after 5:30 a.m. There’s a guy who likes to let his German shepherd run loose on the soccer fields, and some days I get there before they do, and some days they’re already gone before I arrive, but today they were just a couple hundred feet in front of me.

I’d rather not tangle with a loose dog, especially one that I’ve seen act aggressively before, and I don’t expect to see much wildlife in their vicinity anyway, so I cut straight north along the parkway, and it turns out I may not be the only one who’d rather avoid them, because here are a couple of deer hustling across the parkway to get to the quieter side.

I could tell that yesterday was a nice, warm day because the path down to the river was loaded with tiny silk threads left at eye level by various tiny critters for the first time this year, which is always a treat, and the riverbank, which I had just picked up yesterday morning, was littered with fresh fishing line, other tackle, and empty bait containers. I was fewer than thrilled about that.

As I went about collecting the latter, I came across this robin tangled in some line that was also tangled in some low brush. Luckily, after the gosling incident, I keep a pair of tiny safety shears in my camera harness, and I was able to free it pretty quickly. Unfortunately, the bird managed to free itself from my grasp before I could finish getting all the line off its left ankle, which you can just make out in the image below. I’m sure it wasn’t tied in a knot, so let’s hope that now, without any tension to keep it on, it will just come loose and fall off. Dang.

Anyway, as I bent down to pick up the line I had just cut off the robin, look who I found hiding in the grass just off the trail, our first amphibian of the year, an American toad. Yay! Even better, at the north end I could hear that a few of them had started singing. Fantastic!

The trees beside the river at the north end were full of warblers, but they kept up high, and none of them appeared interested in getting their portrait taken today. Instead, this quartet of hungry, lesser yellowlegs did quite a nice job of posing for my camera on an exposed mud flat beside the upstream island.

In addition to the first amphibian, I also saw my first vireo of the year, this gorgeous blue-headed vireo, who was kind, or bold, enough to perch right at my eye level.

Finally, on my way back downstream, the killdeer who’s been hanging out on our riverbank lately was at it again, and today it let me sneak one of the nicest killdeer pictures I believe I’ve managed to take.

Lastly, your blossoms of the day are these beautiful large white trilliums, which are open in various places throughout the park.

PS: Sorry about the venting above. I am usually able to let that stuff go, at least by the time I write my post, but the two situations in quick succession really stuck with me today. Yeah, I know it’s an urban park and not some remote wildlife refuge, but I still wish park goers would follow the few rules we do have and be considerate of other park users and denizens. Where’s the “live and let live” in chasing deer and literally trapping birds in accidental snares?