Signs of Life in Estabrook Park

One last look before the trip home…

The spectacular weather has returned to the Farmington River Valley, here in Connecticut, just in time for our departure back to the Badger State. Luckily, I had a little time this morning before our ride back to the airport, and here’s who I was able to see.

As I checked the weed patch next door, I inadvertently spooked this Cooper’s hawk, who was either sunning itself or hunting, I’ll never know which for sure, but in either case had been perched at about eye level. Happily, it didn’t go far and even let me sneak a peek.

I didn’t see the indigo duskywing today, but I did get about the nicest portrait of one yesterday afternoon that I might ever hope for. The subdued light coming through the cloud cover really let’s us see the subtle pattern they have on their wings.

I struggled with the dragonflies this morning, so let’s take a look at this pretty eastern pondhawk I saw on Saturday.

The pearl crescent butterfly was in the weed patch this morning, and the bright morning sun lit it up perfectly.

Here’s a common eastern bumble bee really digging into its work on Saturday.

Back in the subdued sunlight of yesterday, I found this eastern tailed-blue butterfly sipping nectar from what might be the smallest blossoms I have ever seen, which my sources tell me are those of nodding spurge (Euphorbia nutans).

Finally, in the hope that he brings us good luck with travel today, here’s one more look at the young or molting bluebird from Thursday.

If things do go right, I’ll be back in Estabrook tomorrow morning, so keep your fingers crossed.

East coast wrap up…

It’s not raining, here in CT, so it’s a perfectly fine day for a Labor Day picnic, but the clouds have rolled in, so I certainly wouldn’t call it gorgeous either. On top of that, relatives are starting to head home after the big family celebration, and I’ve already made a sunrise airport run, so one could say that I wasn’t feeling very inspired today. I did need the steps, however, so I went out for a walk after lunch, and this was my reward.

In case you don’t recognize it in that roughed-up state, that’s an eastern tiger swallowtail on one of my sister’s sunflowers, and I have only blind luck to thank for the lighting and background.

Now that we’re all here, I might as well show you a couple more pictures from the last few days, and you’ll recognize this first one as the youngish great blue heron from the railing, but now up to its waist in the water.

Here’s one last look at one of the green herons we’ve been seeing on the pond at the other end of the canal trail.

Back to today, as I was walking past my sister’s flower garden after spotting the swallowtail in her vegetable garden, I found this beauty on her lantana, which got her all excited.

That’s my first American lady butterfly out here, as far as I know, and it was mostly keeping its wings closed, but not completely.

Finally, Anne and I are heading home to Wisconsin tomorrow, so I expect this will be my last post from CT for a while. Thanks for coming along.

The critters go about their business, even if I don’t have time to look…

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the amazingly beautiful weather continued this morning in the home of the Charter Oak. With all of the relatives arriving for my folks’ anniversary this weekend, I haven’t had much time to get out, but here are a few pictures I’ve accumulated over the last few days.

First up is another look at the great blue heron perched on the railing of the short viewing pier over the small pond near my exit from the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail.

One surprising sight of this trip, at least for me, has been large flocks of several dozen brown-headed cowbirds foraging together on lawns. I see groups of perhaps a half dozen in Estabrook, and perhaps larger groups do form, but I just haven’t seen them there yet. In any case, it’s fascinating for me to see the proof that they do group up at all even though each one has been raised in the nest of some other species.

If you don’t recall, they are brood parasites, and I read that “young cowbirds are not exposed to species-typical visual and auditory information [as] other birds {are]. Despite this, they are able to develop species-typical singing, social, and breeding behaviors. Cowbird brains are wired to respond to the vocalizations of other cowbirds, allowing young to find and join flocks of their own species. These vocalizations are consistent across all cowbird populations, and serve as a sort of species-recognition password. If a young cowbird is not exposed to these “password” vocalizations by a certain age, it will mistakenly imprint on the host species.” Wild, isn’t it?

Back at the little weed patch beside my folks’ house, I found a handsome autumn meadowhawk, and we see plenty of them in Estabrook around this time of year, but I believe that this is my first one out here, at least on film.

Finally, here’s a tiny least skipper perched on some right-sized forget-me-not blossoms.

Still plenty of youngsters around…

We had one more beautiful, if surprisingly cool, morning out here in the “Land of Steady Habits”, so I took one more walk along the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail. I wasn’t getting much for pictures until I almost reached my exit, when I spotted a young-looking great blue heron in the water just off the trail.

I hadn’t seen one there yet this trip, so I really wanted a picture, and I backed up right away in hopes of finding a gap in the foliage, but I somehow spooked it anyway. Instead of fleeing to the other side of the little pond, or even farther, however, it merely hopped up onto the railing of a short viewing pier. Even more amazing, it then proceeded to ignore me as I carefully stepped into the open and made this portrait.

Well, the day has gotten away from me, and now it is late, so here are just a few more pictures. First up is a young cedar waxwing gobbling down a berry.

Here’s a killdeer oddly hunkering down in the middle of a huge lawn.

Here’s an eastern phoebe striking a cute pose.

Here’s a young eastern bluebird starting to get his colors in.

Finally, here’s a silver-spotted skipper sipping nectar from what is probably invasive purple loosestrife, but you really can’t blame it for getting calories where it can, right?

A few gems amidst the chaos…

The weather continues to be unseasonably nice out here on the east coast, so I couldn’t but get out for a minute or two, even though our day was otherwise filled with doctors’ appointments and airport pickups.

I did hear a few birds during my outing, of course, but the only ones I managed to capture on film were these two song sparrows hiding in the bushes together, and if I had to guess, the pair comprised a parent and a fledged youngster.

I wasn’t near any water that I knew of, so I was pleasantly surprised to spot this skimming bluet damselfly.

Less surprising, but just as enjoyable, was this pristine-looking eastern tailed-blue.

When I saw this beauty, I got all excited because I thought it might be the tailed-blue with its wings open, but it turns out to be just a boring old gray hairstreak, instead. Ha!

A few flowers are in bloom, including this thistle, so no one should be surprised to see a bumblebee, and here’s a common eastern.

Looking quite similar, except with a shiny abdomen instead of a fuzzy one, is this eastern carpenter bee.

Finally, a trip to that little patch of weeds beside my folks’ yard hardly seems complete now without a wild indigo duskywing butterfly, so here we are.

From cottontails to hairstreaks…

It was a gorgeous morning out here in the Constitution State, and my sister and I dutifully set out before the sun crested the horizon, but I didn’t get a lot of pictures to show for it.

I did see this little cutie right beside the trail, and we’ve seen plenty of eastern cottontails before, but I’ve recently learned that they are not native to New England. Instead, I need to keep my eyes peeled for the New England Cottontail (Sylvilagus transitionalis), which is indeed native here. Maybe someday I’ll be so lucky

Once I got back to my folks’ place, I was pleasantly surprised to find this chipping sparrow in their cedar tree. Their breeding range covers most of the continental US and a lot of Canada, but we don’t see much of them in Estabrook outside of spring and fall migration, and I wonder if the same is true out here.

Much less surprising was this dapper looking American goldfinch. They sure have been thick out here this trip.

Since the day was so nice, and I wasn’t getting much for bird pictures, I checked the weeds next door, and here’s a pearl crescent that was trying to sun itself among them.

Finally, the highlight of the day, at least for me, is this slightly roughed-up, but still quite identifiable, and my very first, red-banded hairstreak (Calycopis cecrops). This makes our third hairstreak butterfly, on top of the banded hairstreaks in Estabrook and a gray hairstreak out here last September.

Things are going to start getting busy out here tomorrow as relatives begin arriving for my folks’ 65th wedding anniversary, so opportunities to post might become few and far between, but I’ll do my best.

I did! I did taw a puddy tat!

My sister and I did hike the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail again this morning, and the weather was pretty nice, if a bit cloudy, but we didn’t see anything remarkable, and I barely took a picture. Instead, the big excitement came yesterday evening when she spotted this gorgeous creature slinking along the edge of my folks’ yard. For those of you unfamiliar with those black-and-white ears and that short tail, this is my very first image of a bobcat (Lynx rufus), aka wildcat, bay lynx, or red lynx. It was barely bigger, though certainly heftier, than my folks’ large house cat.

I did immediately try to take a picture with my phone, but it was at least 50 yards away, and thankfully my camera was just inside the house, so I bolted in to grab it. By the time I came back out, the cat had moved on a bit, but my sister pointed to where it had gone, and I found it just as it pounced into some weeds to catch some small rodent. Here’s a picture with the rodent mostly concealed by the grass to spare your tender eyes.

The rodent was gone in less than a minute, and then the cat continued its prowl. My sister, the vet, confirms from my pictures that this is a female, and she never did let me capture an image of more than just the side of her face. I checked on iNaturalist, and I found that they have been spotted in Wisconsin, but the closest sighting to Milwaukee was in Muskego, so I don’t have much hope of seeing one in Estabrook Park any time soon. Thank goodness for occasional visits to Cheshire, eh? Just look at that paw she has!

Anyway, so as not to leave you with just those three bobcat pictures, as amazing as they are, here’s another look at the belted kingfisher over the Quinnipiac River yesterday morning.

Here’s another look at some of the dozens of mute swans on the Broad Brook Reservoir on Saturday. They appear to be mobbing a great blue heron, but everyone just minded their own business, and perhaps the heron has learned that swans can’t be pushed around as it seems that cormorants can.

Here’s one of the cedar waxwings I mentioned, and I don’t know if this is a youngster who hasn’t yet grown in its fancy tail feathers with a yellow stripe across the tips, an adult who is in the middle of a molt, or if something else is going on, but it’s still a pretty bird, nevertheless.

Finally, here’s one of the more than a dozen gray catbirds that enjoy the habitat along the edge of the trail.

Same state, different pond…

The weather was still pretty nice out here in the Nutmeg State this morning, even though the skies are no longer crystal clear. My sister also had today off of work, so we headed out early to visit Hanover Pond and the Quinnipiac River Gorge Trail, where we’ve had some good luck before.

Our first treat was spotting another bald eagle, either looking for or digesting its breakfast from a perch high over an island in the pond. Either way, I was able to get a recognizable picture this time.

There were also herons, egrets, cormorants, swans, geese, and ducks out on the water, which are all great to see, but it’s a pretty big “pond”, and so my pictures ain’t all that great. Eventually, we figured we had seen all we were going to see, so we started up the trail, and it didn’t take long for this little cutie to allow me about the nicest picture I’ve ever gotten of a Carolina wren.

Perhaps the close confines of the narrow gap in the trees along the Quinnipiac River deserves all the credit, but soon after the wren, this youngish female belted kingfisher, with an interesting take on their usual crest of feathers, did me a similar favor.

Even a great blue heron got in on the act.

Those are the highlights from this morning, so here’s another cemetery bird from Friday, this time a young-looking northern mocking bird.

Finally, we have dragonflies out here, too, if you can believe it, and here’s a blue dasher from my folks’ yard.

The reservoir comes through again…

The recent cold snap we’ve had in Connecticut is taking the weekend off, and I think a high pressure system is sitting right over us, so it is a picture perfect August morning here with mild temps, still air, and clear skies. As I mentioned, my sister doesn’t have to work today, so we drove out to the reservoir on the edge of town where we’ve seen bald eagles and great blue herons nesting before.

Everyone is done with nesting by now, but plenty of birds are still hanging around there, and here’s a belted kingfisher who stopped by before the sun came over the hill.

It appears that the mute swans have had a really good year, and we counted 42 of them on the water, which is certainly the most I’ve ever seen in one place. Wow!

We did see an eagle, but it kept its distance, and my sister found me this osprey instead. We also watched a second osprey head out for breakfast and come back with a nice big fish in short order.

The bushes along the causeway that splits the reservoir were full of little birds, and we saw waxwings, orioles, and goldfinches, but this eastern kingbird let me have the nicest picture.

We counted over a dozen cormorants perched in the trees over the island where the herons had nested last summer, and here’s one drying off after the sun finally reached down to the water.

Finally, back to the bushes, here’s my first Canada warbler of the fall migration. Woo Hoo!

A little progress in CT at last…

Sorry about the radio silence lately. An odd confluence of events and conditions out here have really put a damper on my picture taking this week, but I finally had some luck this morning.

Besides the American crows and blue jays we see in Estabrook, I see two more corvids regularly out here. This first one is a common raven that I photographed while I was standing on the front steps of my folks’ house, and I’m a little surprised to see them here but can find no report of one ever being spotted in Milwaukee County. They seem simply not interested in a big swath of the south and central US, so I might never get to see one of these magnificent beaks back home. Darn.

The other corvid I see out here is the fish crow (Corvus ossifragus), which is slightly smaller than the American crow and whose range hugs the east coast and extends up some river valleys, almost a mirror image of the ravens’, but with some gaps, as in Milwaukee, and some overlaps, such as right here. Since they look so much like American crows, the best way for me to ID them is by their caw, which I find a lot easier to distinguish. Here’s one on a utility wire with some morsel it just found.

Here, a second one has joined it to ask for a piece.

And here they both are checking out how it tastes.

Speaking of morsels, here’s a young-looking green heron, still sporting its spots, with a small frog it caught but that it doesn’t seem to know what to do with now.

Here’s one of the latest in the long line of invasive species we’ve managed to bring to our shores, a spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula), on my folks’ front lawn. It appears that they haven’t yet reached Milwaukee, but I suspect, as with the emerald ash borer before it, that is simply a matter of time.

Finally, we’ve been to a couple of cemeteries this week to visit family graves, and I was pleasantly surprised to find both places full of eastern bluebirds. It appears that they like to perch on headstones to watch for bugs in the lawn onto which they can pounce. If only they knew, they might consider themselves lucky that they got named after their striking color and not after where people spot them, as the chimney swifts and barn owls have.

The weather is supposed to be nice this weekend, and my sister has off of work, so I have a hope that we’ll get to visit someplace interesting to see who lives there. Wish me luck!