Sure, it was cool and cloudy this morning in Estabrook Park, but the wind we were forecast to have didn’t arrive until midmorning, and the sun kept to its new schedule, so it was a pretty nice time for a wildlife walk.
As I made my way from the river to the Beer Garden parking lot to see who might join me, look who I found hiding in the foliage. It is almost as if this Cooper’s hawk heard me wishing I could catch a bird posing against those autumn colors and took the job just a little bit too seriously. “So close, Buddy. So close.”
Four hearty souls came out to look for birds in November, and we visited the pond first, which had geese, mallards, wood ducks, and the pied-billed grebe all on the water at once. This wood duck drake picture is actually from my return visit later in the morning, after the wildlife walkers had gone on with their day, but I still needed some pictures for you.
As I was doing my best with the drake, I noticed some motion nearly right overhead, and when I looked up to see who it was, I found this house finch methodically nibbling on a box elder seed. The one setting I let my camera pick is ISO, and it went surprisingly low and dark for my first shot. I immediately dialed in a couple stops of exposure compensation to brighten the image, but now that I’m home, I like the look of this first, moody one the best, especially the way the seed it its beak has the only surface to reflect much light.
When I turned back to the drake, look who popped up under the same log the drake was perched on. In fact, I believe that’s a bit of his webbed foot in the upper right corner. I am really going to miss this little grebe when it finally heads south.
Finally, I was pretty beat by the time I headed home. I’d been up since 3:30 because I had a conference call with France (just one individual who works there, not the entire country) at 4:15, and I forgot to buy more coffee yesterday, so I had to make do with black tea this morning, which simply isn’t the same. Thus, after the pond, I just cut to the Oak Leaf Trail to make a beeline back to our place, and look who I found waiting to greet me along the way: our first November buck.
I see now that the rain I was led to expect tomorrow is now delayed until tomorrow evening, so I should be able to squeeze in one more dry visit, and I wonder who I’ll see next. Tune in tomorrow to find out.
