Some nice sights, despite the fog…

It was a cool and foggy morning in Estabrook Park, but there wasn’t any rain for a change, so it was a fine time to see who has arrived lately.

The first newcomer I spotted was this very shy green heron at the river. I actually glimpsed it already yesterday, but it wouldn’t let me sneak a picture until today. “Welcome to Estabrook, Sweetie!”

The next fresh arrival was this female red-winged blackbird at the pond. She was making a racket, too, and I couldn’t tell if she was shouting, “Oh dear, I just love it!” or “I flew all that way for this?!?!?” Either way, I’m sure she’ll make the best of it.

This next scene is not for the squeamish, but it is a big part of how nature works, so here you go. This is a mature Cooper’s hawk with its fresh catch, which I suspect was an eastern towhee, based on the look of the tail feathers in some of the other shots.

With the morning so dim and gray, I don’t have much more than that, but by happy coincidence, I have a few pictures from yesterday afternoon when I rode down to check out the lakefront.

My first stop was Juneau Lagoon, and it was full of blue-winged teals, but they were keeping pretty far from shore. Instead, the better sight, in my opinion, was this mature black-crowned night heron, our first of the year.

At Lakeshore State Park, the tree swallows were back and very energetically sorting out who was going to use which nesting box. Here’s a pair checking to see if the basement stayed dry after all that rain.

Finally, there was still a single redhead sticking around and diving with the scaups. What a handsome bird, eh?

Lastly, back to Estabrook, I don’t know exactly what their threshold is, but we must have crossed it last night, because there were spider webs, dripping with water they had scooped out of the fog, all through the park this morning. There is not enough information in this picture for my panel of experts to determine the exact species of spider that made these, but they are pretty sure it is an orb weaver.

The forecast for tomorrow suggests that we’ll have a little less fog and a little more wind. I heard my first house wren of the year this morning, so maybe tomorrow I’ll be able to get my eyes on one. Keep those fingers crossed!