There has indeed been a break in the weather, and I saw real blue sky this morning for the first time in a week or so. Yay! As I was waiting for the 7am wildlife walkers to arrive, there was one crow on the parking lot and one on a pole beside it. Then two more flew in, but they weren’t alone. This Cooper’s hawk, who was noticeably smaller than the crows, appeared to be in a dispute with them, and here it is considering its next move. I read that crows don’t like Cooper’s any more than red-tails or great horned owls, but that Cooper’s are agile enough to turn the tables in flight, if they choose, and maybe that’s what was going on. In any case, the Cooper’s soon moved on, the crows foraged for a minute, but must not have found anything worth staying for, so they eventually moved on, too.
I had one customer for the 7am round, and we found wood ducks on the pond, great blue and green herons on the river, and this one male Baltimore oriole. They’ve been starting to make some noise again, after going quiet for nesting season, but I expect they will follow the red-wing blackbirds and head south soon.
We had a second customer come for the 8am round, but we failed to find anyone new. Oh well. Fall migrants from up north will be here soon enough.
Once we all parted ways, and I started to make my way home, I found this stunner on the playground beside the middle parking lot. It turns out to be a Hackberry emperor, of which we’ve seen plenty, but I don’t think they’ve let us have many looks at that stunning row of eyespots on the outer/under/ventral side of their wings.
Just a bit south of there, near the tunnel under the parkway, I found a red-spotted purple, who have been numerous in previous years, but who have been pretty scarce so far this year. This one looks a little roughed up, but I can’t tell if that’s a cause or effect of their current relative scarcity.
Finally, I did stop by the weeds beside the southern soccer fields, and I was relived to find that the heavy equipment there today was just finishing off the east side, which they cleared last week, and not starting on the west side. I did get a nice monarch picture on the west side, but I just showed you a monarch yesterday, so here’s a tiny summer azure on an ornamental flowering onion blossom beside the Benjamin Church House instead.
The forecast for tomorrow looks quite similar to today’s, but a little dryer and with a bit of a breeze out of the WSW. Perhaps some passers by will find that to be more headwind than they want to contend with right now and stop in for a break. One can hope, right?
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 