Man, if I thought yesterday’s cool weather marked the return of fall, the cold air this morning in Estabrook Park really cemented it. Yikes! I had to break out a poofy coat, and I wished I had also opted for gloves during the first hour or so.
There were still plenty of kinglets foraging in the trees today, but I only saw two warblers, total. There was a yellow-rumped by the river at the north end, but before I got that far upstream, I heard this puffed-up northern waterthrush foraging at the water’s edge.
A bit farther upstream, but still short of the meadow, I found our first fox sparrow of the fall. I didn’t dare move to reduce some of that backlighting, and I might not have had a shot anyway, even if the bird didn’t also move, so this is the image we’re stuck with. Don’t bother viewing it in flickr, because the full-resolution version is no better, alas.
There were at least two Cooper’s hawks, again, at the meadow, and at least one of them was calling. This one looks mature, and the other one looked like a youngster, but this was the best image, and you may find it worth your while to view the full-resolution version on flickr.
As if a couple of Cooper’s wasn’t enough, the osprey was also busy fishing, and it even perched over our riverbank a couple of times. You may enjoy a zoom in on this image, too.
The first big surprise of the day, however, came out on the water where I found another “odd duck” dabbling amongst the mallards. I didn’t see any signs of the gadwall, so today the role was played instead by our first American widgeon of the season. By amazing coincidence, a wigeon first appeared last fall on October 6. How’s that for timing?!?!
As I walked down the old boat ramp in hopes of a better wigeon picture, I inadvertently spooked two dark, robin-sized birds that had been foraging on the exposed river bottom. Happily, they didn’t go far, must have been quite hungry, and were soon back at it. Give a warm welcome to our first rusty blackbirds of the season. One granted us a much nicer portrait last October, so here’s hoping we get so lucky again.
The biggest surprise of the morning came as I waited for the blackbirds to come back out of hiding. I had heard and seen at least one killdeer, so when I saw a pair of small shorebird wings, I thought at first it was just the killdeer flitting around. Things got a whole lot more exciting when it landed, however, and I realized it was our first Wilson’s snipe of the year, and only our third Wilson’s snipe sighting ever in Estabrook. Even better, there were two of them, but they did a good job of preventing me from getting a picture of them together. Maybe next time.
Finally, on my way back south, this little bird caught my eye, mostly because it wasn’t darting for cover as the white-throated sparrows and dark-eyed juncos have been doing since they arrived. Once I had a nicely over-exposed picture to show us the details on its dark side, that big white eyebrow tipped me off that this was our first purple finch of the season, and a female or immature one with brown streaks instead of the raspberry-red wash that the males sport.
Lastly, I didn’t see a single monarch, on the Mexican sunflowers or otherwise, but there were a couple of other butterflies out and keeping low to the ground: a bunch of clouded sulphers and this one fiery skipper.
The forecast calls for a tad more warmth and a lot more clouds tomorrow morning, but the air should be nearly still, at least for the first couple of hours after sunrise, so I can’t wait to see who we find next!
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 