It was a picture-perfect morning in Estabrook Park, with blue skies, a light breeze, and pleasant temps, at least for the early morning. Sure, the heat’s on its way back, after a couple days of relief, but another sign that peak summer is almost upon us, and one that I love to hear, is the call of the cicadas.
My first treat came early, as I walked between the bluff and the guardrail on my way to the pond. I spotted our osprey taking a break, hopefully after a successful fishing trip, atop a solar-powered street light in the UWM commuter parking lot across the river.
I still had not reached the pond, and was just passing the dog park, when I spotted our yellow-crowned night heron, perched high in a tree and also on a break, hopefully for similar reasons.
The pond was pretty quiet, so I continued right on to the islands in the river, and there I found a pair of belted kingfishers. I was hoping to catch both in the same image together, but did manage to get images of each one, and this shot of the female came out the best.
The water around the islands hosted Canada geese, mallards with their ducklings, a few wood ducks, and a couple hooded mergansers, all of whom we’ve seen plenty lately, so I started making my way back downstream. Just after I passed the downstream island, look who I saw going the other way just off the far riverbank: our first beaver of June. Better late than never, right?
I hadn’t seen any pretty new bugs in the meadow at the north end, nor in the pollinator garden, so I had my hopes on the weeds beside the soccer fields. Well, they were quiet, too, and the most interesting sight, in my opinion, was this song sparrow doing his thing in the birch tree growing in the middle of the weed patch.
With still no dragonflies or butterflies to show you, I set out for the one more spot that has proven fruitful in the past: the little clearing beside the river at the far, far south end. As I went by the last good place to check the river, I gave a look out over the water, just in case, and I could barely believe my eyes. Here’s a male common merganser, which is also considered “rare” for here now, and which we haven’t seen since early March! Wow!
When I finally reached that clearing, look who swooped in first: an eastern phoebe, whom we haven’t seen since April and the first phoebe anyone has reported in Estabrook for all of June. I wonder what is going on with these birds?
Once I had the phoebe picture, I could finally start checking the brush and tall grass, and look who I found in short order: our first little wood satyr of the season. Man, I’ve gotta visit this clearing more often!
Finally, I never did get a good dragonfly picture this morning, so here’s a female saddlebags, with those two marks on her tail, that I saw yesterday, to go with the male we saw on Wednesday.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 