Back after a day of playing hooky…

I never did manage to write something for you yesterday, as I had promised, and I apologize for that. I had gone to the dragon boat races in the Lakeshore State Park inlet, as part of the Friends of Lakeshore State Park team, “Fishful Thinking”, and it ended up taking up most of the day, which I had not anticipated. The fun news is that we got faster in every heat and ended up winning our division, in case that’s any consolation.

Anyway, I did make it back into Estabrook Park today, and it was a spectacular morning, but it seemed as though the wildlife was miffed about me skipping yesterday. I only managed a couple of bird pictures, and that was from across the river. Here’s a great blue heron that was just too busy preening to give us a look.

And here’s an osprey that was too busy looking for fish to look our way.

I didn’t see the kingfishers at all today, but here’s one more picture from Friday, when they were in a better mood.

Here’s an eastern amberwing dragonfly on the pond from Thursday.

Here’s another question mark butterfly, also from Thursday.

One butterfly who did strike a nice pose this morning, because it hadn’t heard about my transgression or it simply didn’t care, was this pretty hackberry emperor.

Finally, here’s a gorgeous American lady butterfly from Friday.

I see that it is forecast to be warmer tomorrow morning but otherwise just as nice as today, and I don’t have any conflicts on my calendar, so I’ll be there for the weekly wildlife walk, at 7 and again at 8 am, and here’s hoping that the critters will have forgiven me by then and come out for some pictures.

If, on the other hand, you are not so forgiving and would like to tell me about it in person, you can find me at the Friends of Estabrook picnic in the beer garden from 5-7:30 pm on Tuesday. I’ll even buy you a beer.