Man, this trip is taking longer than I thought. I bet we’re having an amazing time, right?

Anyway, here’s that picture of a mink who had just caught a crayfish off the shore of the northern island back in July.

Here’s a grackle back in July who found itself a crayfish claw.

Here’s a male wood duck on the pond and in juvenile or eclipse plumage who had just caugh a tadpole back in July.

Here’s a female goldfinch filling up on musk thistle seeds beside the soccer fields back in July.

Here’s that beaver contentedly munching on breakfast from back at the end of July.

Here’s a honey bee picture from earlier in August. I can’t believe how good it came out.

Here’s the best shot I managed to get of the spiny softshell turtles sunning on the far shore. I still can’t believe that they’ve probably been there all along, but I just never noticed them until this summer.

It will be fascinating to learn if this is working, but in the meantime, here’s that fawn by the pond who looked so sad that he couldn’t play with me longer.

I’ve discovered that WordPress will let me schedule posts to be published in the future, so let’s give that a try. I obviously can’t post pictures from the future, yet, so I’ll use some of my favorites from the past instead.

Thus, here’s a snowberry clearwing sipping from bee balm from earlier in August.

I let the last of the clouds blow away this morning before venturing into Estabrook Park, and when I arrived at the pond, this young great blue heron still looked a bit shellshocked from all the rain that poured down yesterday.

As I hiked along the river, I could hear a wood pewee making a call that sounded a bit desperate, as if to say, “where the heck is everyone?” Farther upstream, this little one looks too stunned to answer.

Out on the river, all the high ground, which has been exposed for most of the summer and jammed packed with preening and sleeping mallards and geese for the past couple of weeks, is now under water, and the mallards had to make do with a few exposed logs they could find.

Back on shore, this little house wren, who would normally stick to the shadows, was trying to dry out those back feathers.

I didn’t expect to see any surprise visitors, but in hindsight why not, right? They’ve gotta park somewhere, and why not Estabrook? Anyway, here are a pair of great egrets taking advantage of the bright morning sun.

On my way back home, most of the wood ducks in the pond were up on logs for their mid-morning nap, and here’s one who hadn’t nodded off yet.

Finally, the great blue heron still wouldn’t make eye-contact, but it had at least moved to take advantage of that nice warm sun.

Lastly, Anne and I are taking a little trip, and I’m bringing my camera along, but I’m leaving my laptop behind, so I won’t have a way to post for about 10 days. Here’s hoping I do have something for you when we get back.