Well, we got our wish, assuming you had your fingers crossed as I did mine, and the rain mostly held off this morning. But you know the old saying, “be careful what you wish for.” Instead of falling as rain, the moisture stayed in the air, and we’ve been enjoying a crazy thick fog ever since the sun began its vain attempt to burn through it.
Luckily, there were still birds on the river, so I could keep my lens pointed below the horizon, in hopes of keeping it dry, and here’s the one goldeneye drake I saw today. There were also two hens upstream, but maybe they’re avoiding him.
Just beyond the goldeneye, I found this common merganser hen, up on one of the little patches of ice that still remain.
The big surprise of the morning, however, was this hooded merganser drake, who also happened to be the most skittish of the three. We’ve only seen hoodies in Estabrook once so far this year, and I sure hope this won’t be our last sighting.
Around the islands, along with the geese jockeying for nesting sites and mallards filling their bellies, there was a small gathering of gulls. Here’s one of the two herring gulls, with its conspicuously pink legs and feet.
And here’s a pair of aptly named ring-billed gulls, with black rings on the ends of their bills, of course, but also quite yellow legs and feet.
Lastly, the big surprise around the islands was not only that there were fourteen common mergansers, which I probably have seen before, but also that they all congregated so closely together that I could get a picture of thirteen of them. That also might be the most drakes I’ve seen together in the park.
As crazy as today’s weather has been, the fog is forecast to continue through the night and into tomorrow morning. At this point, I don’t even know what I’d dare wishing for.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 