A break in the heat, at last…

Well, the heat wave is starting to break, at least here in Estabrook Park, and it is still only 75°F outside as I write this. The bigger break for me, however, was that the howling wind we’ve had for the past three days has finally subsided, so I can hear myself think out there, for a change. The downside to that, however, is that the mosquitoes are plentiful, quite hungry, and perhaps a little crabby about having been pinned down over the weekend. I swear I saw a mosquito biting a mosquito that was biting my knuckle as I tried to take a picture.

Anyway, our little celebrity guest is still at the pond, but the crowd it has been attracting is also finally subsiding.

I couldn’t find the family of wood ducks on the river today, but look who I found instead, a brood of pretty fresh-looking mallard ducklings.

The young hooded merganser is still on the river and now there are even two of them, but this picture, of just one up out of the water for a moment, came out a lot better.

The first surprise guest of the morning was this osprey who paused for a moment to check out our fresh fish assortment.

I checked on the hummingbird chicks, of course, and I didn’t find Mom with them this time, but look who’s getting big enough to start peeking over the rim of its nest.

By happy coincidence, look who I found taking a break over the edge of the bluff quite a bit south of the nest. I have no idea how many hummingbirds might be in the area, nor what kind of range they might maintain during breeding season, so I really can’t tell you if he has any relation to the chicks in the nest upstream, but the human brain sure does yearn for a good story, doesn’t it.

After all the toad excitement last month, I haven’t been paying them much attention lately, but it was hard to ignore this tree toad wannabe.

The recent parade of dragonflies continues, and today’s entry is this striking twelve-spotted skimmer in the weeds beside the soccer fields.

Finally, the butterflies will not be outdone, and here’s a stunning little northern or pearl crescent, the jury’s still out on exactly which species it is, beside the river at the north end. If you really need to know, feel free to click on the two links in the first sentence just above and decide for yourself.

Lastly, a reader who is currently out of town wrote in to ask for a picture of the meadow at the north end that I went on about yesterday, so here it is. I struggle to capture on film what my eye can see in scenes like this, but the image has pretty good resolution so if you click on it, you can zoom in a bunch to see some of the individual blossoms. I noticed today that I forgot to mention that there are also daisies, fleabane, campion, and St John’s wort in the mix, so that’s eleven species currently in bloom, just in my rough counting.

Keep your fingers crossed that Parks has changed its policy or simply forgotten about it, since they removed the asphalt from the road down from the parkway a month or two ago, and that no one reminds them about it. Yes, I realize, of course, that some kind of maintenance is necessary to keep trees and bushes from invading an artificial clearing like this, but I’d like to think that it doesn’t include mowing it while it’s in full bloom. Okay, that’s enough of that rant.