The temps were mild, and the air was still, but the clouds were thicker than yesterday, and they even leaked a little bit, so the weather was a mixed bag this morning in Estabrook Park. The mosquitoes, however, were decidedly not mixed. Instead, they were just plain fierce, as though they were angry about being grounded for a couple of cool mornings.
Anyway, my first treat came at the river above the falls, when I spotted the doe and her fawn on the downstream island. Even better, the fawn managed to pause for a picture in one of the few spots not draped with trash left behind by the recent flood waters. It was hard to tell for sure, because the brush is so thick in places, but I suspect that entire island had been under water for a while, and some spots now really need some work.
As luck would have it, the first green heron we’ve seen in a while perched right above the fawn. The cherry on top came as the warm morning sun poked through the clouds for a minute just as I was trying to take its picture.
When I got to the meadow a bit farther upstream, I was disappointed to find it partially mowed again, but thrilled to find a handsome young buck nibbling on some weeds that escaped the mowing.
The warblers were even scarcer than usual today, and I only saw a couple of magnolias and a few redstarts. Worse, nobody was in the mood for pictures this morning, so I climbed the bluff and started making my way back south.
That’s when I had my third deer spotting of the morning, which might be a record. I’ve certainly seen more individuals in a single morning, but I can’t say for sure that I’ve seen them spread out over three different locations before. Maybe that’s why the warblers were keeping out of sight.
I had seen three great blue herons at once as they dispersed from a tall tree just above the falls, but I don’t think I could have made a nice picture out of that, even if I had tried, so I was happy for the chance to get a still picture of just one, who was on the hunt in the still water below the pair of radio towers.
At the pollinator garden, I found this wandering glider dragonfly, who appeared to be just resting. I read that “it is considered to be the most widespread dragonfly on the planet, [and] individual [wandering gliders] fly more than 6,000 km (3,730 miles)—one of the farthest known migrations of all insect species.” If that’s what was in my near future, I’d be resting, too.
At the weeds beside the soccer fields, I found this white-faced meadowhawk, perhaps the same one we had just seen on Monday, tangled in a spider web. Now, I try to avoid interfering with predator-prey interactions, because nobody wins in the long run if predators go hungry, but there was no sign of the spider who had built that web, so I assumed it had moved on, and the dragonfly eagerly latched onto my finger when I offered it. Better yet, I wasn’t too late, and once free from the web, it soon flew off to do whatever it is that meadowhawks do, which had better include catching and eating mosquitoes!
Finally, there were a handful of monarchs out and about today, and here’s one at the pollinator garden getting covered in pollen by the Mexican sunflower from which it is sipping nectar.
Lastly, the crew was reconfiguring their partial cofferdam above the falls this morning, and if you click on the image so that you can zoom in, you can see a worker attaching chains hanging from the excavator bucket so that they can reposition it.
Tune in tomorrow to find out if there could possibly be more deer, if there might be a second wave of warblers, if the dragonflies have put a dent in the mosquito population, and if the work crew is finally done with our side of the falls.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 