I could not believe my string of luck this morning when dawn broke on still air and clear skies yet again. Plus, it looks like the Canadian wildfire smoke has finally cleared out, at least for now, so I hustled into the park just around sunrise.
My first treat greeted me as I strolled down the path behind the middle playground toward the river. This American red squirrel seemed to think I had come to steal whatever morsel it had found, appeared to be quite upset about it, and loudly expressed its displeasure before it scampered farther up that fallen tree trunk to put some distance between us. “Sorry, sweetie! All I wanted was this picture.”
My next treat came as I approached the north end along the river, where I found these two, young, spotted sandpipers acting real friendly on a little strip of exposed river bottom between the two islands. “Get a room, you two love birds!”
As I was waiting for the sandpipers to make a nice pose together, I heard a little disturbance in the water just downstream from me, and when I turned to check on it, I could hardly believe my eyes. There was a river otter in the water not twenty feet away from me, it quickly turned to head downstream, and my heart sank into my shoes as I thought I had blown my one chance for a picture. Thank heavens, the otter had other plans and resurfaced perhaps just another twenty feet away.
Then it proceeded to catch and devour crayfish after crayfish in the most spectacular fashion. It would dive for not even a minute, and then it would swim to the shore of the island to gobble down its catch with what sure looked like glee. In the image below, you can see a crayfish claw hanging out of its mouth.
Here it is going back for another.
And here it is in a slightly different spot making sure it doesn’t lose a single crumb or drop.
Although once or twice a paw was required.
It even glanced my way every now and then, and I did my best to keep my prying eyes behind my camera and otherwise pretend as though I wasn’t even there. Nevertheless, it eventually ate its fill, or the supply was exhausted, because it returned at last to deeper water, and I didn’t see it again, no matter how long I waited. I took the first picture at 7:20 and the 78th picture at 7:30, so it had granted me ten full minutes of viewing. Wow! Be still my heart!
I almost went straight home right after that, but I am a professional after all, though not in any profession applicable to this situation, so I pressed on to keep up appearances, and as I was checking the mallards for any odd ducks who might be hiding among them, look who I spotted on the far riverbank. We’ve seen great blue herons flash us before, but never quite like this.
After that, I did start heading back south, and by then the sun had warmed up the wildflower meadow nicely, so it was abuzz with bugs. There were bees, wasps, dragonflies, damselflies, moths, and butterflies. I took plenty of pictures, but my single favorite has got to be this uncommonly gorgeous common buckeye letting us sneak a glimpse of the under/outer/ventral side of its left wings. This is one of those times when WordPress really lets us down, and you’ll be doing yourself a big favor if you click on the image so you can view a full-resolution copy on flickr and zoom in to see all the amazing details.
Between the otter and the butterflies, I had used up my full three hours before I even left the meadow, but it was such a beautiful morning, what’s a guy to do? Well, this guy stopped by the wide and slow spot in the river below the falls to see who else might be out, and my reward was finding this eastern amberwing dragonfly uncharacteristically perched on shore. I usually have to wait seemingly for ever for one to land, and it usually lands somewhere out on the water were I can’t get very close. But not today! I really should go buy a lottery ticket.
Finally, what’s a hike home without a stop at the weeds beside the southern soccer fields? Today’s treat was a look at yet another under/outer/ventral side of a pair of wings, this time belonging to a northern crescent butterfly. What a morning!
Lastly, the crew did move some rock in the riverbed above the falls yesterday, but I couldn’t detect any change in the actual falls themselves, and there appeared to be no work happening today. Maybe some expert has to come and inspect the progress before they can continue, and perhaps we’ll find out tomorrow.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 