Signs of Life in Estabrook Park

Autumn returns…

It looks pretty nice out now, if a lot cooler than yesterday, but it was raining lightly when I woke up this morning, so it appears that our recent run of sunny, summer weather in Estabrook Park has finally come to an end. Given the cloud cover, I was thrilled that I was able to catch a glimpse of the Harvest Supermoon before it set behind the old American Lace Paper Company Factory Building on Port Washington Road. Ah yup, that’s a biggun.

My next treat was spotting our first red-tailed hawk of the month. Too bad it couldn’t stick around until the blue sky arrived, but those squirrels ain’t gonna catch themselves.

It was great to see the wood ducks and pied-billed grebe still on the pond, and since we don’t often get grebes there, here’s one more picture while they’re available.

The treats just kept coming this morning, and this one was standing on the downstream island staring at me as I tried to get a presentable heron picture.

I had hardly walked 20 feet farther upstream when I noticed the buck with asymmetrical antlers keeping tabs on me, too. I suspect he’s the same one we saw at the south end back in August when his antlers were still fuzzy.

The biggest treat of all, however, came beside the upstream island as I counted the mallards. As happens once in a blue moon, despite the fact that last night’s moon definitely wasn’t blue, there was an “odd” duck dabbling amongst the mallards, and this one is our first gadwall since last December! Woo Hoo!

Finally, it was too cool for pretty bugs this morning, and I didn’t see a single dragonfly or butterfly. Luckily, the monarchs have been going crazy on the Mexican sunflowers lately, so here’s one of the pictures I kept in my back pocket so I could show you some other pretty critter that day instead.

Lastly, I’m soon off to give my “class” at North Shore School for Seniors this afternoon, so maybe I’ll see you there.

A few more stragglers…

It has mostly clouded up now, as I write this, but the nice weather we’ve been enjoying in Estabrook Park was still pretty much holding this morning for our Weekly Wildlife Walk. Three folks met me for the 7am start, and another four joined us at 8am.

Our first treat came early when we spotted this little flycatcher busily hunting high over the field just northwest of the beer garden. We had just seen a phoebe at the pond, so that was our first guess, but it was hunting much higher than I’ve ever seen phoebes. The current consensus among my sources is that this is a late (thus “rare”) wood-pewee. Now we’re just waiting for the fine folks at ebird.org, where we log our sightings, to confirm.

Our next big treat came at the river, across from the upstream island, when an osprey flew by with a big fish in tow and perched on a bare branch just a bit upstream of us. Luckily, two of the 8-amers had already joined us by then, so they got to see it, too. As a consolation, I suppose, the second two spotted a groundhog, which I have only managed to see twice in the park, on their way to joining us at the north end.

With all eight of us assembled, we headed back south and found a bonanza of brown creepers, a couple of black-and-white warblers, and a few ruby-crowned kinglets having a feeding frenzy right near where we had seen the wood-pewee. Here’s one of the warblers, …

and here’s one of the kinglets. I don’t mean to sound like a whiner, but the WordPress renderings of all these pictures doesn’t match what I see on flickr, so if you want to enjoy the full effect, you know what to do. Plus, you only need to click on one image, or this link, and then you can scroll through all of them on flickr.

When we got back to the parking lot, some of the 8-amers, who had arrived after we had already visited the pond, wanted to see the yawning grebe, so we headed over for seconds. The grebe was indeed there, as were a dozen or more wood ducks, but it wasn’t until everyone left, and I stuck around to try for another nice grebe portrait, that it had some luck rustling up some breakfast. Here it is with a nice big crayfish, …

and here it is with that crayfish mostly down its throat tail first. Wow! Don’t try this at home, kids! Perhaps that yawn wasn’t out of sleepiness, but instead was more like an athlete’s stretch before the big event.

Now, for the insect portion of our program. Just as we were wrapping up with the creepers, warblers, and kinglets, I spotted what will probably be our last black saddlebags dragonfly of the season. As soon as I saw it approach one of the fruit trees by the parking lot, I began chanting to myself “land, land, oh please, land.” And then, miracle of miracles, it actually did.

Finally, as I was taking yet one more picture of a sunlixt monarch butterfly on a Mexican sunflower blossom with a little blue sky for a background, yet another late season surprise, this gorgeous buckeye, flew in and landed at knee level on some black-eyed susans.

Lastly, Lisa was kind enough to forward me a picture she snuck of us all trying to ID some tiny bird.

The warblers ain’t done with us yet…

It was a fine day for an October farmers’ market in Estabrook Park, but the beautiful weather we’ve been enjoying lately has started to fray a bit. I’m sure few folks mind backing off on the heat some, but I was a little bummed to see the still air go.

Anyway, the wood duck drake at the pond has doubled his entourage from two to four hens. It’s amazing what a sharp-looking suit can do.

The pied-billed grebe is still there, but maybe this yawn suggests that it’s starting to get a little bored with pond life.

The big surprise for me, however, was the number of warblers in the park today. In addition to the yellowthroat, palm, and yellow-rumped warblers we’ve been seeing lately, here’s our first orange-crowned of the season with a beak full of caterpillar. Yum!

Here’s a black-throated green wishing he had the same.

I heard this one before I saw it, and immediately thought that it was a red-eyed vireo chasing after the ones who had been here but are now long gone. The song wasn’t quite the same, however, and that’s because this is our first blue-headed vireo of the season, instead.

While the warblers, vireos, and most of the sparrows are just passing through, this little cutie, our first dark-eyed junco of the season, has just arrived at its home for the winter. “Welcome! We hope you enjoy your stay.”

The warm weather even brought out some dragonflies, and here’s a common green darner parked for a moment in the sun at the pollinator garden.

There were also a few monarchs on the Mexican sunflowers again, but to avoid over exposure, here’s another clouded sulpher on aster blossoms.

The forecast for tomorrow morning looks about the same as today, so the viewing should be pretty good, and I wonder who we’ll see next.

Feels like summer is back…

Don’t blame me if I sound like a broken record because it’s not my fault that the weather just keeps getting a little nicer every day. In fact, it is supposed to get so warm this afternoon that this yellow-rumped warbler, our first of the season, may wonder if it didn’t set out too soon.

This young great blue heron and I surprised each other with our sudden proximity at the river. Luckily its reaction was to freeze and mine was to take its picture.

At the north end, I finally got our first kinglet picture of the fall, and that white eye-ring makes this little darling a ruby-crowned, even if we can’t see its ruby crown.

The red-winged blackbirds are all long gone, but there are still a few grackles hanging around, and this one really put on a light show for us.

As I started to make my way back downstream, I could hear a few crows making a ruckus, and I thought maybe they were mobbing a raptor. So, I picked up the pace and arrived in time to find at least a dozen crows harassing a pair of Cooper’s hawks. One of the hawks flew around a bit, and one just sat and cried. The youngster below was the crier, poor thing, and I’d bet the flier was a parent trying to help its kid out.

I didn’t hear or see any red-breasted nuthatches today, for a change, but this white-breasted was really putting on a show for somebody. I doubt very much that I was the intended audience, but I tried to show my appreciation anyway. The WordPress rendering of all the pictures today looks a bit low-res, but this one might be the worst because the original came out especially nice, so you know what to do.

The goldfinches already have their winter coats on, despite the weather, and the sunflower seeds are ripe, which should go a long way towards replenishing the calories it took to grow all those new feathers.

Eat’m while they’re fresh!

The monarchs continue to love the Mexican sunflowers, and I had at least three subjects to choose from today.

Finally, this thing, which my sources tell me is a bear’s head tooth fungus (Hericium americanum) and Vermont’s state mushroom, was about the size and shape of a rugby ball. It’s a contender for the most amazing mushroom I have ever seen.

Lastly, the crew was hard at work on finishing up the reshaping of the falls this morning, and if you zoom in, you can see that they have backed the articulated dump truck onto the exposed river bottom so that the excavator can fill it up with limestone rubble.

The forecast for tomorrow is more of the same with a smidgen more wind, so it’s gonna be a great morning to see who else just flew in.

More regulars return, and a new face finally shows up….

The fine weather trend continued this morning in Estabrook Park, with calmer winds, warmer air, and about the same mostly-blue sky. It was warm enough that I even heard a cicada make one more valiant effort to attract a mate.

I’m mostly over my jet lag, so I was able to get into the park fully-caffeinated and about twenty minutes earlier than yesterday, and I arrived at the pond in time to catch this belted kingfisher watch the sun start to shine through the trees to the east.

The wood ducks and pied-billed grebe are still there, but the bigger surprise today was when this Cooper’s hawk swooped in and perched right at eye level. I did my best to keep my face covered by my camera, and it took a while, but I get the impression that the hawk finally noticed me standing on shore.

You may recall that I didn’t see any warblers yesterday, but I didn’t take that to mean that they had all flown south already. Well, today I present to you exhibit 1: a darling little female common yellowthroat lurking in the low brush beside the river at the north end.

Along with the sparrows I showed you yesterday, another member of the next migrant wave is this brown creeper, who was kind enough to line up with a little bit of blue sky shining through the foliage behind it.

Back at the south end, as I checked the weeds for butterflies, I was pleasantly surprised to find another warbling straggler, which I call “exhibit 2”: this sharp-looking palm warbler hungrily picking seeds or bugs, I couldn’t tell which, from some gone-by thistle.

Meanwhile, this eastern phoebe was definitely hunting for bugs right behind me.

The highlight of the morning, however, at least for me, was finding this beauty hiding in the low brush nearly right between the warbler and the phoebe. For those of you who don’t recognize it, and why would you because I’ve never managed to show you one before, this is the elusive yellow-billed cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus), and the yellow eye-ring suggests that it’s a youngster.

Even as I write this, I can’t believe my luck to have not only gotten to see one, finally, but that I also managed to capture a presentable image I can show you. Yee haw! I wouldn’t quite call it a portrait, but if you click on the image so you can view it in flickr and zoom in to the full resolution, you should be able to see the dark-brown iris that I can see inside that yellow eye-ring.

Finally, I did see a couple of monarchs on the Mexican sunflowers again, but to keep things from getting too monotonous, here’s a pretty clouded sulpher butterfly on either some hairy white oldfield aster or some arrow-leaved aster.

The forecast for tomorrow morning is for more of the same, so I can’t wait to see who I find next.

Plenty of changes in Estabrook Park after a couple of weeks away…

It was a gorgeous early autumn morning in Estabrook Park, with temps in the low 60s, a very light breeze, and clear skies, so a very fine time to return.

My first pleasant surprise today was finding that the wood duck drakes have gotten their new feathers in, and they look fabulous.

My second surprise was finding our first pied-billed grebe of the fall on the pond, and they tend to be a bit shy, but this little cutie let me sneak what might be my very best portrait of one so far. This one also lacks the black stripe on it’s bill, so its a youngster or non-breeding adult.

The river water is as low as I believe I’ve ever seen it, so there is a lot of bottom exposed, just as the killdeer like it, and here’s one of a pair foraging for their breakfast near the upstream island.

I didn’t see any warblers today, which doesn’t mean they are all gone, by any means, but most have likely continued south already. In their place, the sparrows that breed up north have arrived, and here’s a young white-crowned sparrow whose crown is still brown.

I would have been a little surprised to find a white-crowned but not a white-throated, which are usually more plentiful, but the sun had to get pretty warm before this one would let us have a nice look.

I had heard that yellow-bellied sapsuckers were around, as well, and they also kept me in suspense until I was almost out of the park. I only found this youngster on the cottonwood trees behind the Benjamin Church House.

Speaking of the Church House, look who decided to see what was inside those columns on the front porch. I read that “downy woodpeckers have been discovered nesting inside the walls of buildings,” but this guy might find the hollow cavity inside that column bigger than he bargained for.

I was thrilled to find butterflies still around, and this is the first mourning cloak we’ve seen in a while.

I saw several monarchs who have not yet begun their flight to Mexico, and this one might have been checking to see if it will like the food when it gets there before heading out.

Finally, in the couple of weeks that I was away, the crew reshaping the falls appears to have finished with our side, moved their coffer dam to the other side, and has already removed a lot of limestone. I bet the low water helps a bit, far better than the flood, at least, and here’s hoping they’ll be able to wrap things up before the snow flies.

I just received word that 17 folks have signed up for my “class” on the wildlife in Estabrook at the North Shore School for Seniors, so there are still some seats available. It’s next Tuesday, October 7, from 1 – 1:50 pm, and you can click here to register if you’d like to join us.

Back in the Dairyland State again…

Anne and I just go home, safe and sound, after about 38 hours in taxies, airports, airplanes, trains, and busses, so I’m sorry to say that I won’t make it to Estabrook Park today. I can, however, give you one more glimpse at that amazing Eurasian hoopoe we saw at the Dead Sea just over a week ago.

Now I have to go to the grocery store to get us something to eat and then try to keep my eyes open until at least the sun goes down so I can have a hope of a good night’s sleep. Wish me luck!

A little more of Azraq…

By the time you get this, Anne and I should be in a plane or an airport somewhere on our way home, and I might see something interesting out on the tarmac, but just in case, here are a few more critters from the Azraq Wetland Reserve.

I’ve been seeing gray herons since Aqaba, but they’ve been super shy or just too far away. This one, however, must have been quite hungry because it let me sneak this picture.

Here’s another look at the blue-cheeked bee-eater as it gobbles down what could well be that beautiful violet dropwing dragonfly I already showed you.

Here’s that white-eared bulbul again and reassuring me that both of its “ears” are white.

For comparison, here’s a white-spectacled bulbul at the citadel in Amman gobbling down what might be a seed out of one of those cones.

This next picture ain’t great, but it does show the best glimpse I got of our very first white-throated kingfisher (Halcyon smyrnensis). I wish I could blame this one on WordPress’s rendering, and if you do click on the image so you can zoom in on the original, you’ll see it’s not much better, but you can make out the namesake white throat just below the enormous rusty bill.

For those of you trying to keep track at home, I think that makes the 28th new species we’ve seen this trip. There are also another 9 that I was able to ID but not photograph well enough to show you, and now you know my bar is pretty low.

Finally, the violet dropwing was not the only dragonfly perching in the sun, and here’s a northern banded groundling (Brachythemis impartita), in case you don’t go in much for those gaudy colors.

Lastly, there are supposed to be mammals at the reserve, as well, including some water buffalo, which are reported to have been brought by Chechen immigrants in the early 1800s, but I only had about an hour and a half during mid-day to enjoy the reserve, so who knows where they were hiding.

Amman and Azraq…

We did make it to Amman, and we did have a nice daytrip to several “castles”, including Qasr Kharana, Qusayr ‘Amra, and Qasr al-Azraq, and the Azraq Wetland Reserve, which held the first freshwater we’ve seen all trip, so I had high hopes, and the reserve did not disappoint.

The biggest bird we saw, by far, was this young great white pelican, the likes of which we last saw in London, of all places. Of course, Anne saw it first and came running back to get me as I was wasting my time trying to get yet another red-backed shrike picture.

There were plenty of blue-cheeked bee-eaters, but in a slightly more natural setting than the metal fence post on which we saw the last one.

There were a couple of little grebes (Tachybaptus ruficollis), whom I also saw in Aqaba, but who were too far away there for a decent photo, so this is their debut in this venue.

The bird I was most excited to see, however, was this white-eared bulbul (Pycnonotus leucotis), because it is our very first one and our fourth bulbul over all.

With standing fresh water, I would have been surprised if there were not dragonflies, but this violet dropwing (Trithemis annulata) is still a stunner.

Finally, back in Amman, there is a citadel atop the hill behind our hotel, and here’s an Egyptian rock agama lizard (Laudakia vulgaris) climbing on the ruins.

Tomorrow we begin our journey home, but we’ve got a few flights to sit through, so it’s gonna take us a while. Wish us luck, and I’ll try to post something to tide you over until I get back to Estabrook.

Petra!

We made it to Petra, though driving through the modern city was a bit of a trick, but the archeological site was far more amazing than I had even imagined. The iconic building carved into red sandstone, called “The Treasury”, and seen in many movies, is only the tip of the iceberg. Petra was a booming metropolis from about 400 BC to 106 AD, and there are dozens of other buildings to see as well.

Even better, old stone buildings were not the only sights to see, and this striking bird is our very first Tristram’s starling (Onychognathus tristramii), a female. I read that “the species is named after Reverend Henry Baker Tristram,” “an early, but short-lived, supporter of Darwinism.”

Here’s the glossy black and slightly less cooperative male. I read further that “[they are] also known as Dead Sea starlings or Tristram’s grackles, [they are] native to the Middle East, [and they are] the only member of the genus Onychognathus found mainly outside of Africa.”

We also saw laughing doves, pale crag-martins, white-spectacled bulbuls, a Eurasian blackcap, and a blackstart, but none allowed pictures as nice as I’ve already shown you.

Luckily, I had a couple of hours before our drive to Petra to go visit the Aqaba Bird Observatory one more time, and a couple of new birds came out to say “hi”. This first one darted around in the top of a tree, as we’ve seen plenty of warblers do in Estabrook, but this one is our first graceful prinia (Prinia gracilis). If “prinia” sounds familiar, perhaps that’s because you read about the tawny-flanked prinia I saw in Malawi a while back.

When I saw this bird, I figured it for another western yellow wagtail, but I remembered what Anne always says, “take the darn picture and worry about who it is later.” Well, she’s been proven right again, and my sources tell me that this little cutie turns out to be yet another wheatear, if you can believe it, an Isabelline wheatear (Oenanthe isabellina), in fact.

I first noticed these critters darting around on the hot sand at Wadi Rum, but I never managed to get a picture, so I was glad to have one more chance to capture a black desert ant (Cataglyphis nigra) on film. I read that they are known for extreme heat tolerance and the ability to navigate by observing the sun’s location, which avoids depending on pheromone traces that can be obliterated by blowing sand and allows taking a direct path back to the nest after locating prey to minimize exposure.

Finally, the blue-spotted Arab butterflies were still plentiful, and this time I got a good look at the dorsal (top/in) side of the wings. They sure are pretty, aren’t they?

Our next stop is Amman, the capital of Jordan, and Anne has us booked on a tour of the Azraq Wetland Reserve, so there might be even more wildlife to see. Keep your fingers crossed.