Keeping cool by the lake…

While the rest of the country broils under the latest heat dome, Estabrook Park and its surrounding communities is enjoying the cooling effect this morning of its own giant misting system, aka a gentle breeze blowing off of Lake Michigan.

With all the mist and heavy cloud cover, I didn’t have high hopes for this morning, so I couldn’t believe my luck when I found this beauty lurking high in a tree just west of the soccer fields. Well, I must admit that my “luck” was hugely aided by the jays, flickers, robins, and even orioles who were all loudly urging it to find another tree somewhere else. You can get some indication of how dim the light was this morning by how dilated its pupils are. With almost no yellow iris showing, which I don’t believe I’ve seen from them before, I wondered for a second if it might be a barred owl, but the “great horns” really give it away.

At the pond, I was a little disappointed to find no herons today, but the hooded merganser did its best to fill in for them, and I think it did a fine job. Don’t you?

The sandpipers were also sleeping in this morning, so I didn’t find anything to photograph at the north end, but this tough-looking chipmunk staring me down as I made my way back south made up for that. I even wondered for a moment if it was going to let me pass, but it eventually relented and scampered into the brush beside the trail.

Most of the dragonflies were in hiding, as well, so here’s a handsome male blue dasher from yesterday, when they were plentiful.

And here’s a striking female to go with, if they both should so choose, of course.

Finally, I was thrilled to find a butterfly this morning, given all the other absences, and that it was a mourning cloak was just icing on the cake.

Lastly, I finally remembered to take a picture of the sign that MMSD has posted at the top of the stairs by the beer garden, which I believe shows what they intend to do with the falls better than any image I could find on their website.