I didn’t make it to the park today, I am sorry to say, even though the morning looked as beautiful as forecast, at least before the winds came up, the clouds blew in, and the flurries started. Anyway, I do have a couple of pictures in my back pocket that might be able to tide you over.

Here’s one more picture of one of the great horned owls from last Saturday when there were two of them on the southern island, and they were both perched facing away from the east bank. You can see it has turned to face the sun, and it has its eyes closed, or at least the left one.

Here’s one more picture of the osprey from the same morning, which was the last time we saw this magnificent bird. With the sun just starting to peak over the horizon to add a golden glow, it looks like a fantastic picture, until you notice the little branch right in front of its eyes. Cursed branch!

Here’s one more blue heron picture from Sunday morning, when we saw the young buck swim across the river. I already included a good picture of a heron from where the river is wide and slow, so I opted not to also include this one of a heron farther south where the river is narrow and fast.

Finally, here’s a picture from the second sighting of that young buck with the funky antlers near the north end on Monday, which I mentioned on Tuesday. I think you can see why I didn’t use it then, but you can also see that the beaver have been busy there gnawing the bark off of some trunks they fell. I sure am glad to see that!

The forecast for tomorrow morning is even better than for today, and I don’t have to go to school, so I expect I’ll be in the park at sunrise. Maybe I’ll see you there, and let’s hope we’re not the only ones awake this time!

Wow, it was dark and warm this morning, and the sky barely started to lighten when the sun supposedly rose. Dawn could not be denied, however, the sky eventually did lighten, and I ventured into Estabrook to see if anyone was up yet. It turns out, they weren’t. Ha!

Despite our amazing luck lately with pretty big fauna; such as osprey, deer, herons, beaver, and owls; I barely saw a squirrel or a mallard this morning. It was eerie. I could hear a few little birds; such as juncos, cardinals, chickadees, goldfinches, and nuthatches; and even glimpsed them once in a while, but nobody wanted to sit for a portrait today.

Instead, here are the unlucky laggards, whom I did manage to catch, and the first one is this shy, but not quite shy enough, song sparrow deep in the brush on the slope down from the beer garden.

Second is this golden-crowned kinglet who appears to have started its leap to better cover two milliseconds too late. Better luck next time, little buddy. We are inside the north edge of their winter range, so here’s hoping there is a next time.

And that’s all of them, if you can believe it. I saved a lot of film today.

The next two mornings are forecast to be sunny and seasonably cold, so let’s hope that helps everyone get out of bed in the morning.

As promised, here’s the rest of the story.

After that special encounter yesterday with the two does and two bucks on the river at the south end, I continued north along the river path looking for the osprey. Well, I never did see the osprey, but as I approached where the river gets wide and still, I could see a blue heron up ahead out on the water warming up in the morning sun.

There wasn’t much to see as I passed the falls, and as I approached the southern island, I stopped to see if I could spot the owls again before I inadvertently spooked them. I was standing right at the edge of the water, to see past the brush that grows there, with the binoculars to my eyes, and I had just spotted what looked like owl feathers near the same spot as last time, when I noticed a ripple in the water right in front of me.

As luck would have it, there was a beaver in the water not 10 feet away from me. It appears to have noticed me at about the same time as I noticed it, and it began to hustle out of sight, but I did manage to squeeze off this one blurry picture first. Then it was gone.

Luckily, I had no time to bemoan that lousy shot, because there was an owl waiting for me up ahead. There was just one this time, and it was facing our way for a change.

I took a lot of pictures that almost all look the same because the owl didn’t move much. I almost fell into the river trying to get low enough so that the leaf in front of its forehead doesn’t completely cover its face, but I managed to stay dry and only hit myself in the head with my camera instead. Fortunately, my camera is a lot harder than my head, which is really saying something, so it’s no worse for the wear.

After I figured that at least one picture must have come out presentable, I continued north and was soon greeted by this happy scene. I am seldom able to get my ducks in a row like that.

As I continued north, I’m pretty sure I saw our swimming young buck on the riverbank up ahead, and he was keeping dry this time, but I didn’t manage to get a presentable picture. If it was him, though, he sure is getting around!

At the far north end, a kingfisher and plenty more mallards are still around, but there were no geese nor killdeer yesterday. Instead, a female cardinal let me have a pretty shot again.

Finally, on my way back south, it appears that the heron had moved to a higher perch over the water.

It looks perfectly beautiful out my window right now, as I type this, but I’ve gotta go to school this morning, and so we’ll have to wait till tomorrow to see who comes out to enjoy the forecast warm spell.

It all started with just one doe, whom I accidentally spooked as I made my way north along the river trail from the southern end. At first, she bolted inland, but when I didn’t pursue, she came back, crossed the trail, and continued down to the river.

I continued a bit north along the trail and then hiked down to the river myself to see if I could get a better shot of her.

That’s when I noticed that there were two of them.

As I tried to line up a decent shot of those two, a buck strode out of the brush to join them. Now things are getting interesting.

But wait, there’s more! Soon a second buck came along to fill out the foursome.

The does headed right on over to check out the new guy.

They were soon followed by the first buck, and the does gave the guys some room.

Things looked tense for a moment.

But it never came to blows, thank goodness, and they took a little walk together.

Then they all hiked back up on shore and left me to pack up my camera.

I did hike up to the north end and took some more pictures before I went back home, but let’s save those for tomorrow.

It was a soggy morning in Estabrook, but the winds were light, the snow didn’t materialize, and there was a lot more activity than I expected. I went straight to the river again, and didn’t see the osprey this morning, but there was a blue heron just off the near shore where the river gets wide and slow at the base of stairway 8.

As I continued north, I could hear a kingfisher, and didn’t pay it much attention because they are always too shy for me to get close, but then this one took a break right across from the base of stairway 7, so here we are.

There were plenty of mallards at the north end, but no geese, mergansers, or any other odd ducks that I could see. There was also no sign of the owl pair from yesterday. Instead, I finally caught a chickadee, who’ve been around all fall, of course, but have been too fast for me lately.

Speaking of fast, I was surprised to spot a golden-crowned kinglet but failed to get a picture. Instead, on my way back south, I finally caught a junco and its striking black and white tail, for the first time, I think.

And speaking of white tails, look who I saw almost at the south end: a young buck with an awkward, asymmetrical, teenagery-looking set of antlers. I was quite surprised when it opted to wade across the river instead of just strolling down the riverbank, but I later saw a fisherman further south, and the two of us might have been more than the buck wanted to deal with.

It made it across just fine, I am happy to report, and shook itself dry just as dogs do.

After that, it seemed in no rush, checked out the grass, gave us a look, and ambled up the bank ahead of it.

The forecast is for more light winds tomorrow morning and a chance for some sun, so I have a hope there will be more pretty sights for us to see. Keep your fingers crossed!

It was cool and blustery again this morning, but the sun came out for a bit, and that helped a lot. Plus, I went straight down to the river to get out of some of that wind, and it turns out that I wasn’t the only one.

Our resident osprey had already caught its breakfast when I came by, and it was now high up in a giant cottonwood getting to work on it. Of course, it spotted me, as you can plainly see, but decided I wasn’t enough of a threat to bother dragging that fish to another tree.

By the time I had gotten about as far north as the pond, the sun felt nice and warm, so I took a chance and headed over to see if anyone was around, and here’s a goldfinch looking like it is still trying to warm up.

Here’s a female downy woodpecker working up a sweat on a little tree trunk between the path and the pond and completely ignoring me.

And here’s a grey squirrel adding a little fruit to its diet from a bush out over the water.

Back along the river, here’s a male downy woodpecker working just as hard as the female by the pond, but quite a bit farther up a tree. Thank goodness for that blue sky.

As I approached the base of stairway 5, just across from the southern tip of the southern island, long-time reader and expert spotter, Lisa, came hustling down the path to tell me about her latest find: a pair of great horned owls in a big maple tree right on the island.

They were about 6 feet apart on the same branch and slightly obscured by the leaves still clinging to the tree. This island is where we’ve seen owls before, one even took a bath just about right below this spot, but I’ve never seen two of them together in Estabrook before. Thank you, Lisa!

The forecast is for snow tomorrow morning, so that could be interesting, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

The thick cloud cover kept things pretty dark, and the strong wind had most critters laying low this morning. Some, however, were hardy enough or hungry enough to brave the weather anyway, and here they are.

A trio of deer, perhaps a doe and two of her youngsters almost all grown up, were grazing under the crabapple trees by the southern parking lot when I arrived, and this one was the least perturbed by me. Perhaps it is the same one as on Monday, and now knows the drill.

This grey squirrel looked to be in the middle of some grooming operation as I walked by but opted to wrap that up when I stopped and tried to take its picture.

I saw a robin, a cardinal, a chickadee, a kingfisher, and a few mallards, but there was no morning sun for anyone to warm themselves up in, so nobody was inadvertently posing for us.

The osprey, on the other hand, doesn’t need a warm sun to pose for us and looks magnificent even against a grey sky, so here you go. I sure am going to miss this one when it moves on.

The forecast for tomorrow includes at least some sun, so let’s hope it shines a ray or two on Estabrook Park for us.

Here’s one more look at that magnificent buck from yesterday. I guess if you’re stickler for symmetry, this guy would lose some points for that 5th little tine on his right rack, but luckily for him, we’re not sticklers, and neither is that doe he was with, we can hope. We’re all just thrilled to see him in Estabrook, right?

Here’s one more look at that adorable red squirrel that my dad likes so much.

Here’s one more look at that osprey that Tamar pointed out for us on Sunday.

Here’s a first for this year. Some flowers are still blooming this late in the season, if you can believe it, and these appear to be common toadflax, yellow toadflax, or butter-and-eggs (Linaria vulgaris) growing out of the limestone blocks lining stairway number 7 from the river up to the skate park. I suspect it helps that the spot is protected from the wind and gets plenty of afternoon sun that the blocks can soak up and radiate for a while after dark.

I’ve been seeing these blossoms for much of the summer, especially growing out of the wall at the base of stairway number 6, up to the beer garden, but they really stand out now for being about the last fresh blossoms in the park.

Finally, some mushrooms are still sprouting, and this one, like many others this fall, is growing out of a gap in the bark of a box elder (Acer negundo) aka boxelder maple, Manitoba maple or ash-leaved maple, which is growing in the nice stand of trees lining the path that follows the stream from the pond down to the river. I suspect the stand of trees provides enough protection to keep these from freezing, for now.

Lastly, here’s hoping I can replenish our photo stock during tomorrow morning’s outing.

Overnight lows were still above freezing, but the clear skies provided us with a nice thick coating of frost again this morning, which made a pretty backdrop for our opening scene.

Yup another doe and her buck, an 8-pointer this time, were checking out the soccer fields early this morning. I never had a good shot of them close together, maybe they were having one of those mornings, but here’s a close-up of each of them.

How’s that for a handsome couple, eh?

Here’s a closer look at that frost, too, bejeweling an oak leaf.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot to report after that. The sky clouded up, the pond was empty, and the only birds I saw on the river were mallards and this lone kingfisher in one of her favorite spots out over the water beside the northern island.

The last bright spot of the morning was this female cardinal foraging on the forest floor as I made my way south along the river.

I can totally get the limited appeal, but I’m looking forward to the river icing over so that more birds come to take advantage of the open water preserved by our falls and the rapids below them.

Got no time for the park today, sadly, but recent visits have been so great that I’ve got some pictures left over.

Here the doe at the south end checking out the beach volleyball court. She may have left some Park Raisinets™, and I can’t say for sure, but I’d be skeptical of any candy I found in that sand, especially if it was unwrapped.

Here’s her companion dutifully crossing the parkway at the crosswalk, like a good boy.

Here’s another look at the muskrat filling up for winter.

Here’s the red squirrel that couldn’t seem to decide how dangerous I was. Man, it must have really wanted that nut back.

Here’s another shot of the beaver cruising down the river in some golden morning light reflected off the far shore.

And finally, here’s a shot of the osprey flying off with the little fish it caught. Sorry about the blur.