Our recent string of beautiful mornings continued today with another exemplar edition, and the wildlife did its best to keep up.
Before we get to this morning, however, let me show you this amazing little cutie that was kind enough to get my attention right as I hopped on the Oak Leaf trail to ride my bike to campus yesterday afternoon. Its call sounded like a warbler, but not one I recognized, so I whipped out my often-trusty Merlin App to see if it knew who it was, and its best guess was “cerulean warbler”. Heavens to Murgatroyd! I sure ain’t heard one of those before, let alone ever seen one.
Thus, I channeled my best little bird nerd and ran back across Wilson Dr to grab my binoculars and camera, all while holding my breath in hopes that the little stinker wouldn’t move on without me. Happily, the caterpillars in that tree must have been especially tasty because once I returned, it kept right on calling for the nearly 10 minutes I frantically searched the tree for a glimpse of it.
Then, once I did finally lay eyes on it, I got quite the little show for another full 10 minutes, although it did keep to the higher branches. I ended up with 150 pictures, and this is the best of the lot, if you can believe it. Give a warm Estabrook welcome to our first ever Cerulean Warbler (Setophaga cerulea). We’re near the north edge of their breeding range, but ebird considered my sighting “rare” for reasons I don’t know. Perhaps it just never expected me to find one. Ha!
Okay, back to this morning. I’ve been hearing great crested flycatchers since we got back from Africa, but today was the first time one let me sneak a picture.
There must be some insect emerging from the river right now that is big enough for ring-billed gulls to see, catch, and be worth the effort, because for the past few days there have been dozens of such gulls gliding over the water and occasionally dipping to snatch something out of it. I tried to capture one in the act, of course, but this was the best I could do today.
Long-time readers may recall that I reported cliff swallows nesting under the southern eave of the Holiday Inn across the river, and I kept checking for them this year, but I haven’t seen any, until now. It turns out that they’ve opted to build their nests under the Port Washington Road bridge this time, and you can just see the face of one peeping out of the nest in this picture. Perhaps they became jealous of the pigeons and barn swallows that nested there in the past and decided to horn in on their act.
Another bird that has been singing since my return is the red-eyed vireo, and this one must have heard about the flycatcher picture above and didn’t want to be left out.
As I made my way back downstream, the surprises weren’t done with me yet, because here are our first ducklings of the year, along with their mom, a wood duck hen. What a fabulous sight, and I sure hope we get to see more of them.
Finally, as I made my way across the southern soccer fields, I did see another monarch, but it kept right on flying, as its comrades had done yesterday, and we’ll just have to settle for a picture of this gorgeous black swallowtail instead.
I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings!
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 