It’s gonna be a hot one…

My thermometer was reading 80°F at 7 a.m., and the heat index is expected to exceed 100°F later today, so I did my best to get a nice early start in Estabrook Park this morning.

Another upside to chasing the sunrise is that I got to visit our young guest, the immature yellow-crowned night heron, before the crowds arrived to get a look. A couple hours later, as I was making my way back south, Anne caught up to me on her morning walk, and she reported seeing “four or five guys with huge cameras at the north end of the pond.” I sure hope they don’t chase it off before the folks who come to the wildlife walk tomorrow get a chance.

Down on the river, I caught this female belted kingfisher just before she plunged into the water below and then sped off for a different perch, and I bet that exercise feels a whole lot better today than it did last December.

A bit upstream, here’s another mallard hen with her brood of eight, who look a bit older than the four I saw yesterday.

On my way back downstream, I checked on the hummingbird chicks, and you can really see their beaks this time.

The big surprise for the day, however, was finally spotting a brood of wood duck ducklings. Yay! They are tiny, and they were all the way across the river at a wide point, but you can still make out their six little yellow necks and faces.

Another dragonfly has emerged, and this one is a widow skimmer.

Finally, I’ve already seen a few of these tiny summer azure butterflies, and this picture is far from “portrait quality”, but I believe you can see the tip of its abdomen is curved down and pointed at the top of a bud, which suggests to me that it is a she, and she’s laying eggs, which I have not had the privilege of seeing before. For comparison, check out this picture from last Labor Day.

Lastly, as I suggested above, I’ll be back at the weekly wildlife walk tomorrow morning, and I hope you’ll join me. To beat the heat, I’ll continue starting at 7 a.m., and I’ll swing by the beer garden parking lot again at 8 a.m. for the folks who can’t make it by 7. Also, if you arrive just a bit late, perhaps due to traffic or whatever, I’ve hidden my phone number in the text of the weekly wildlife walk page, and you can text me to see where we’re hiding.