The weather this morning in Estabrook Park was more similar to yesterday’s than the forecast had led me to expect. The air was mostly still, and the sky was pretty clear, but sunrise temps were in the low 40s. Brrrr. I could see my breath.
The main star of the show today was this youngish bald eagle on the river between the two islands. The color of its head plumage suggests that it is about 3-4 years old, but the other birds who might normally be on the water, such as the gadwall, wigeon, killdeer, or snipes, appeared to treat it as “fully armed and operational”, because there was no sign of any of them. The original version of this image isn’t the greatest, but it’s a lot better than the rendering WordPress appears ready to send you, so if you want to zoom in to see what color eyes this eagle has, you know what to do.
I didn’t see a single warbler today, which doesn’t mean they’re all gone yet, but if there are any left, they might have been waiting for the sun to warm things up a bit. Luckily, more migrants keep arriving to make the show go on, for now, and here’s our first Lincoln’s sparrow of the season.
When I spotted this pretty little bird, I got equally excited because I thought that pink-looking-beak meant it was our first field sparrow of the season, but now I’m not so sure. The light brown stripe projecting from the back of the eye suggests that it could be a very pale immature white-crowned sparrow. We’ll have to see what the experts say when they weigh in.
At least I had no trouble identifying this red-bellied woodpecker, though I could have used a little better look at the head to see if it has a male’s red crown or only a female’s red nape. The interesting detail for me, however, is that I watched it make at least 6 trips from a nearby berry bush to this dead ash trunk to stash away berries, because I had no idea they did that.
Here it is just about to stuff that berry into a crack in the bark. I have seen them sip sap from trees during the winter, and Tom shared that amazing picture of one pulling a bat out from behind a flap of bark, but this behavior is a new one for me. Ha!
And here it is with just the tip of its tongue sticking out. What a clever bird.
Finally, I didn’t see a single butterfly today, so here’s that clouded sulpher I saw yesterday.
The forecast for tomorrow morning is cool, cloudy, and breezy, so I wonder who will be out and about.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 