The rain forecast for this morning never came, at least until this afternoon, and neither did any wildlife walkers, so I had quite a nice morning in Estabrook Park all to my lonesome.
My first treat came on the river between the islands, where I was checking for shorebirds, when I spotted this giant snapping turtle lumbering over a high spot in the river bottom.
All the regular shorebirds were in attendance, the spotted sandpipers, killdeer, and even a solitary sandpiper, but the rarer occurrence and prettier picture was this belted kingfisher upstream, over the riverbank, and against a pretty green background.
As I was searching for the kingfisher I could hear, look who else I saw out on the water: our first spiny softshell turtle of the summer. Woo Hoo!
As I made my way back downstream, I arrived just in time to spot this great blue heron with a nice big catfish in its beak. I couldn’t tell if the heron hadn’t had a fish that big in a while, if it never had a fish that big before, or if something else gave it pause, but it sure did futz with that fish a lot. It set it back down and recaught it a couple of times and rinsed it off, first in this water, and then in that water, about a dozen times. Since it was taking so long, I figured I’d have time to move to a better vantage point, but during the whole 20 seconds that we were out of sight of each other, the bird swallowed the fish. Dang it.
Since those were the best sights of today, and I’ve got a little bit of room left, here are a few pictures from Saturday morning at the Retzer Nature Center. Despite all the big open fields, and the occasional bobolink sighting, none of us had seen a meadowlark. That is until Saturday morning when this little cutie flew in and plopped down on a freshly mowed part to preen.
When I first heard this guy, I couldn’t believe my luck, because if I could get eyes on it, that would make both the yellow-billed and the black-billed cuckoos in the same week. Holy Mackerel!
Finally, I’d heard the familiar call of sandhill cranes in the distance a couple of times already over the week, but it was a special treat to get a low flyover from this pair to wrap up my last outing there. “Thanks, Guys!”
Lastly, it looks like we’re in for a pretty nice morning again tomorrow, with a little breeze out of the north, so maybe someone new will stop in on their way south. Tune in to find out.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 
I had to laugh – doesn’t it seem to take Great Blue Herons FOREVER to settle on swallowing their fish? And just when you give up watching them, they gobble it! Fun pics – what a banner week, getting to see BOTH cuckoos!! And I was told that the bobolinks were gone, so how special to see one of those too!! Plus, congrats on your Master Naturalist certification – you had quite a week out there!
>
LikeLike
I will say that Kingfisher was very stately!!
LikeLike