It was a nice-enough morning in Estabrook Park, but it appears that most of the resident critters have already split for the Memorial Day weekend. Thus, I am sorry to say that there was no sign of either the mallard or wood duck ducklings on the pond, and the bluebirds were not in the usual spot. All I could find were a few stragglers.

Here’s an eastern cottontail just before it started hopping down that bunny trail.

And here’s a wild turkey, which some of you may have in your own backyards right now, but we don’t get to see very often in the park.

There were still a few warblers in the trees and bushes, but with my backup lens, I don’t have much hope of getting any pictures for you. I did receive word that my good lens has arrived at the service center, so here’s hoping they can fix it up quick and send it back here soon.

The fine weather has returned to Estabrook Park, at least for this morning, and it was a great time to visit, but let’s cut right to the main event, which I only saw on my second visit to the pond: seven brand-new and vigorous wood duck ducklings. Woo Hoo!

The mallard hen with her duckling was still there, and even up on the west lawn again, but we’ve seen a lot of them lately, so let’s skip to the bigger sight, also at the pond: our first female belted kingfisher of the year. Hurray!

On my way to the river, the bluebirds were out hunting over the lawn again, and here’s the male showing off his grip.

At the river, there were two great blue herons: one up on the remaining big dead tree over the northern island, and the other a lot closer to our shore and in the effective range of my current lens.

Back on shore, here’s our second dragonfly of the season, after the one being devoured by the blue-headed vireo last month, and this one appears to be our very first midland clubtail (Gomphurus fraternus).

A lot farther south, down the bluff from the southern playground, the Canada goose family with three goslings was up in their usual spot.

Finally, I saw two monarchs and a tiger swallowtail this morning, but all three were too busy for pictures. I also saw at least four of these little ones, summer azures (Celastrina neglecta), and this one was willing to sit still for 1/125 of a second. They are a lot bluer on the inside/topside of their wings, but good luck getting that picture.

Wowzah! The wind sure is blowing in Estabrook Park this morning. Fortunately for this project, critters be hungry anyway, so there were still some sights to see. Once I sat down to seem less of a threat, the mallard hen and her duckling on the pond came over for their daily picture.

While I was sitting there, this guy came up on the lawn, waddled around behind me, and just parked there. I wonder what he wanted.

Happily, I took that picture and turned around in time to catch this action back on the water. “Soon enough, little cutie, soon enough.”

Meanwhile, this wood duck couple might be scouting nesting locations. There is a nesting box mounted on the island, but I don’t know if they use it.

After the pond, I headed over to the river and was dismayed to find the “raptor tree” on the northern island had succumbed to the high winds last night. Over the years, we have seen it provide perches for bald eagles, osprey, red-tailed hawks, Cooper’s hawks, merlins, peregrine falcons, great blue herons, great egrets, and belted kingfishers. There is another big dead tree on the island, and it is not as prominent, but I sure hope the birds find it to be as attractive.

In happier news, back on our shore, this robin was keeping her eggs warm.

While just a little farther inland, this grey squirrel was munching on grass seeds from the safety of a maple tree branch.

Lastly, as I searched in vain for a spotted sandpipers on the river, I glimpsed some turkey vultures drifting overhead, and as I counted for swallows hunting over the water, the crowd of turkey vultures eventually grew to eight (8!). I’ve seen similar groups in Connecticut, and the skies over the Amazon would have dozens at once, but this is the first time I’ve seen so many over Estabrook Park. If it’s an omen, I sure hope it’s a good one.

The fog in Estabrook Park this morning was as thick as pea soup. It was foggy before dawn, and it has lifted a bit, but it is still foggy as I write this. On top of that, I finally broke down and sent my good lens in for service yesterday. It has been acting up lately, and I got tired of missing shots while it struggled to get up to speed. So, now I’m stuck using a shorter, backup lens, and you shouldn’t get your hopes up! At least it didn’t rain this morning.

I waited for enough sunlight to seep through the fog, so by the time I reached the pond, the mallard hen and her duckling were already done with breakfast and were doing a little preening before starting their naps.

Leave it to the bluebirds to choose today to finally pose together, right? Oh well. They’re still pretty birds.

When I reached the river, I could barely see across, but if you look closely, you can see two great blue herons perched on a branch over the far shore. Yeah, it was that foggy.

Here they are again after Adobe Lightroom tried its best to “dehaze” the image.

Later, on my way back south after visiting the north end, the fog had lifted a bit by the time I found one of them on our side of the river.

Finally, at the far south end, I found a chipmunk on a tree trunk at about eye level, which I seldom get to see. They are in the ground squirrel tribe of rodents, after all.

That’s it for today, I’m afraid, but since I’ve got a little room left, I can finally show you the amazing pictures that Tom, the mink whisperer, was kind enough to send me. He was watching a female, red-bellied woodpecker forage on the trunk of a dead tree when she reached under a flap of loose bark and pulled out a bat. Can you even believe it!?!?!

She dragged the poor little thing all the way out, and I don’t believe it ended well for the bat. Man, those woodpeckers are fiercer predators than I realized.

At the breakfast table this morning, Anne and I saw the chance of precipitation below 20% through 10am. By the time we headed out at 5:40, it had jumped up to 78% for 7am, but the radar forecast looked like it might just miss us. Well, by the time I got to the pond, the radar showed an angry red wall fixin’ to wash over us. Happily, Anne was able to ride her bike back home before the worst hit us, and I waited out the downpour under the little entrance way on the maintenance building in the park. Thus, I did not get many pictures today.

During a little lull, I hustled over to the beer garden to watch the rain from under a bigger roof, and on the way I spotted the mallard hen hunkered down on the west lawn of the pond, just like the first day we saw her, and the male eastern bluebird appearing to be seeking cover on the side of this big branch.

When the rain finally wrapped up, and the sun threatened to poke through the clouds, I stopped by the pond again on my way home, and I found the mallard hen and her duckling back to business as usual, as if nothing had even happened.

It was another super nice morning in Estabrook Park, with slightly warmer temps and a little bit more of a breeze. The critters might have been worn out from the big day yesterday, I sure know I was, but we all did our best anyway.

I saw three sandpipers on the river, along with a killdeer, and I thought the sandpipers were all spotted until I got a good look at the one picture I took. This cutie turns out to be a solitary sandpiper, whom we haven’t seen in a while. I’d better start paying more attention!

Back up on the bluff, I found the male bluebird on the wire again, and his behavior suggests that he’s getting used to my shenanigans, even if the expression on his face doesn’t.

I stopped by the pond, and even waited by the flowering bush, in hopes of seeing the hummingbird again, but it didn’t arrive before my patience ran out, so here’s one more picture from yesterday.

While I was waiting for the hummingbird, I watched this female house sparrow doing her best hummingbird imitation as it was snatching something from or near the water surface. I did not know that they could do that.

Here she is posing for the camera.

Meanwhile, the mallard hen and her duckling were enjoying their naps in the warm morning sun.

Finally, here’s another look, this time from Friday, at the pair of flickers.

Lastly, we were out long enough yesterday for the butterflies to start flying, and here’s an American lady.

Today was the third annual Pollinator Palooza in Estabrook Park, and they could not have had a better day for it. It started out cool, but it warmed up quickly, the breeze has been light, and the skies have not been cloudy all day. In the past, they have had Charles Hagner lead bird walks in the morning, but Mr. Hagner couldn’t make it today, so they asked me to fill in, and, except for me arriving late for the 9:30 walk because I thought it started at 10 am, I don’t think it went half bad. We had no injuries, and I’m pretty sure we didn’t lose anybody.

The 6:30 group started right on time and got to see a blackburnian warbler right off the bat, seen here being all coy with my camera, …

the mallard hen and her duckling, wood ducks, one of which is up in a tree here, and a slew of other birds.

A family of four had to hit the road right at 7:30, but a couple of sharp-eyed guys had the time to keep looking, so we went north along the river and saw a green heron, …

my first ever yellow-bellied flycatcher (Empidonax flaviventris), …

my first killdeer on the river of this season, …

the first warbling vireo that let me capture an image good enough for me to use as a positive ID, …

and a great horned owl being mobbed by crows on the west side of the southern island. Man, I’d hate to be on the business end of those talons, right?

The 9:30 group, which was kind enough to wait for me to drag my butt to the start at 9:55, included three subscribers to this blog and got to see a ruby-throated hummingbird by the pond, …

which even perched for a second if we failed to capture it in flight, …

a baby snapping turtle gobbling up polliwogs in the river, …

which I believe are from the toads we saw there just recently, …

the red-headed woodpecker, and a slew of other birds.

Thanks to everyone who came out today and helped me spot all these amazing sights. I hope we get to do it again sometime.

It was a strange morning in Estabrook Park. The air was warmer than it’s been in a while, and the skies were nice and clear at sunrise, but then a thick fog rolled in from off the lake, and I could barely make out the far riverbank. Then, as randomly as it came, the fog rolled away again, and the sun came back out. Weird.

Anyway, before the fog came, I found a newer-looking family of geese and goslings in nearly the same place as we saw the teenagers yesterday.

I just barely beat the fog to the north end, and I was surprised to find a pair of brown-headed cowbirds willing to let me get close enough for pictures. Here’s the female, and …

here’s the male, with his namesake brown head. He got all poofy a couple of times, but she was not interested, so they both just kept foraging.

On the water, there were more geese than I’ve seen in a while, including about a couple dozen goslings, and the air was full of swifts and swallows, but the fog was so thick I didn’t even bother trying to take pictures. I headed back south instead and soon came across this white-crowned sparrow filling up on dandelion seeds.

By the time I reached the beer garden, the fog was just about gone, so I dropped back down to the river and soon found the red-headed woodpecker again. I had heard him earlier, but I could not get eyes on him.

Back at the pond, I found the mallard hen and her gosling down for their mid-morning nap.

This warmup is bringing out the bullfrogs, and I was startled by a huge one parked on the riverbank, but this one on a log in the pond made a better picture.

On my first visit to the pond, I couldn’t find any wood ducks, but on my second try, I found this drake also down for a nap, but with at least one eye open.

On the path through the woods back to the river, I believe I spotted our first Alder flycatcher (Empidonax alnorum). It doesn’t appear to have the olive-green back of an Acadian flycatcher, the peaked head feathers of a wood pewee, the dark head of a phoebe, the eye-ring of a least flycatcher, but I didn’t hear it sing, so I suppose it could be a willow flycatcher. As usual, we’ll see what the experts say.

This next bird gave me no identification trouble, but crows seem to prefer not to have their picture taken. This one was excited about something, however, and was too busy calling other crows to worry about me.

Finally, on my way back home, this chipmunk froze on the path, and I might have skipped taking its picture on the asphalt like that, but I was amazed at how straight it was holding its tail, and who knows when, if ever, I’ll get to see that again.

Lastly, the mayapples are in bloom, under their tent umbrella leaves. I read that you can eat the “apples” once they ripen to a nice yellow, but all the rest of the plan is poisonous, even the fruit while it is still green, in case you are hungry now.

The sky is a bit hazy today, but the breeze has died down, which makes listening for birds all the easier, so it was another perfectly fine morning to be in Estabrook Park. When I arrived at the pond, I could hear a wood duck calling, and it only took me a moment to find this cutie perched atop the big old trunk at the southern tip.

The bigger surprise was finding a great blue heron in a tree at the other end of the pond. We’ve seen them on the river a couple of times, but I think this is the first time this season that I’ve seen one at the pond.

The biggest surprise was finding a second great blue heron fishing in the pond along the east shore. What a way to make an entrance!

I didn’t see anyone else there at the time, so I continued on to the north end, and found the bluebirds again along the way. I believe this one is the male, based on the vibrancy of his colors.

There are still redstarts singing and foraging everywhere, and here’s a female.

This male wasn’t far away.

The chestnut-sided warblers are almost as ubiquitous as the redstarts, and the jet-black mask on the face of this one marks him as a male.

I didn’t see a kingbird until later, and I wasn’t able to get a picture, but here’s another look at the one from yesterday.

On my way back by the pond, the mother duck and duckling had come out from wherever they were hiding, and they seem to be getting comfortable with life in their little fishbowl because they are making it easier for me to get nice pictures.

Finally, I stopped back by the river one more time, and the geese with seven goslings, who are really starting to look like teenagers now, were settling in for their mid-morning naps.

There is still a cool breeze out of the northeast, but the sun was out, and the sky was blue, so it was another beautiful morning to be in Estabrook Park. There are still plenty of warblers around, especially redstarts, of which I counted at least two dozen, but we’ve seen a lot of warblers lately, so let’s give them a break today.

Instead, check out this blue jay gathering nesting material off the ground beside the pond. They are normally much shyer than their aggressive reputation at the birdfeeder would suggest, but when you just gotta have that stick, you’re willing to put up with a few stares, I guess.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a few rose-breasted grossbeaks today, and here’s one, also by the pond, catching the morning sun just right.

On my way from the pond to the river, I spotted a pair of blue birds foraging bugs out of the grass from perches overhead, and here’s the male sizing me up.

I arrived at the river just in time to watch this kingfisher dive in to grab this little fish.

Farther north, the grounded common merganser drake is still looking otherwise healthy and perhaps getting a little used to me trying to get a picture of him.

Back on shore, this grackle was posing so nicely and glistening in the sun, and then …

it turned its high beams on. Wow, what a flex! I did not know it could do that with its chest feathers.

Right below the grackle, the kingbird was on break from flying sorties out over the river to catch bugs.

Just a bit farther inland from those two, the indigo buntings are back in one of their favorite locations in the park, and this one was announcing that he was now open for business.

I didn’t see any scarlet tanagers today, so they may all have already moved on, but happily, we’ve got our own, native, bright-red bird to fall back on when we need a dose.

Finally, the mallard duckling and its mom continue to graze on the pond, and today the duckling seemed a lot less frantic, so I was able sneak this nice portrait of the two of them together.