They called a committee meeting…

It was a dark and stormy morning in Estabrook, but there was a gap between the showers, so I snuck into the park to see who I could see.

Things got off to a nice start when I caught a glimpse of this darling young Cooper’s hawk gliding into this tree for a landing. As I’ve done before, and which you can’t prove doesn’t work, I kept my camera in front of my face to hide my eyes, and it let me capture the best image I could hope for, given the lighting.

My next treat came on the river around the two islands. As I searched in vain again for any odd ducks, I could see a large dark bird perched high over the riverbank a bit farther upstream. So, I did my best to sneak up on it, and it turned out to be another turkey vulture. Two sightings in as many days! That’s quite a change in fortune given the recent dearth of appearances.

Better yet, it wasn’t alone, and here are two of its friends.

And here are three more (the one on the far left is the same bird as on the right above). Holy Smokes! Six of them! A regular committee meeting! I’ve seen quite a few black vultures together in Connecticut and elsewhere, but this is the first time I’ve seen so many turkey vultures together in all of Wisconsin, let alone Estabrook.

Lastly, and I know that came up fast, but so did the next down pour, it turns out that today was bath day for the Canada geese, and here they are a-rub-a-dub-dubbin’ in the river just above what’s left of the falls.

I don’t even have any more leftover butterflies for you, so we’ll just have to hope that the forecast for a drier tomorrow holds true. Keep you fingers crossed!