Happy semiquincentennial eve!

Our recent heat wave continues to wane, but slowly, and the critters in Estabrook Park just keep going about their business as usual.

A great blue heron was looking fierce as it fished in the river just above the falls, and this one appears to be in its second summer with a hint of adult plumage but also the bi-colored bill of a youngster.

There was a trio of killdeer foraging on the exposed river bottom around the upstream island, and this one had the best pensive look.

A new sight for the season was this quintet of northern rough-winged swallows together on a branch over our riverbank, and I believe the second from the right is feeding the third from the right. In all, I counted ten of them in that tree, if only for an instant. I read that they only have one brood per year, with 4-8 eggs, so some in this picture are likely fledglings, and they could even all be from a single nest.

Speaking of fledglings, I suspect this kestrel, perched atop a contraption in the guywire system for one of the towers across the river, has also recently left the nest based on the way it was crying to be fed. I haven’t been able to show you one since the start of May.

Mallard ducklings, on the other hand, are precocial, so they hatch ready to find their own food. All Mom has to do is lead them to it.

Spotted sandpipers are also supposed to be precocial, but I have yet to see a chick, as I did once with killdeer and again just recently with piping plovers, so I don’t know if the ones we see regularly even nest along our stretch of the river. In any case, here’s a mature adult at the far south end striking a very nice pose that doesn’t look pensive at all.

Finally, dragonflies don’t exactly “fledge”, of course, but they do transition from living in the water as larvae to taking flight as adults, and eastern pondhawks are supposed to have done that in mid-June, but here’s the first one of the year that I’ve managed to capture on film.

Lastly, I expect that things will get loud for the next couple of days, and I hope you keep safe if you’re participating in any of that.