Our streak of nice weather has broken, and it was quite a rainy morning in Estabrook Park. It wasn’t very cold, the winds were light, and there were some gaps in the rain, however, so I managed to sneak some pictures anyway.

The biggest surprise was spotting this eastern bluebird, whom we haven’t seen in a while. I sure am glad to know they are still around.

At the north end, I checked on the beaver again. They had slept in yesterday, or at least weren’t out on their front porch, but I did see this adult hiding in the shadows today. I’m as surprised as you might be to see that two-toned face, but we’re not the only ones to have seen such markings.

Finally, I don’t know if this is a separate set of ducklings on the pond, or if the seven we saw yesterday is down one already, but they did bunch up much better for the camera this morning.

That’s all I’ve got for today, I’m afraid, and I am a little surprised to have this much.

It was a perfect morning in Estabrook Park, with not a cloud in the sky and barely a breeze, and thus nice cool air. When I stopped by the river on my way to the pond, I counted a few mallards, a couple of geese, and nearly a dozen northern rough-winged swallows. Then I started to collect the fishing tackle left over from the weekend, and I nearly fell over when I glanced up and saw seven young-looking wood duck ducklings following their mom across the river to our side. Hot diggity dog! They are trying again.

After getting some pictures and taking a moment to look around for what else I had missed, I hiked up to the pond, and look who I found along the way.

At the pond, I counted a few mallards, a couple of wood duck hens, looked for the green heron, and started collecting fishing tackle left over from the weekend. When I glanced up, I could not believe my eyes, because there were seven more youngish-looking wood duck ducklings following their mom across the pond. Fantastic! They’ve doubled their odds.

After that, I took a moment to sit on the bench to see who else I might have missed. That’s when the female belted kingfisher perched over the near shore a couple dozen yards a way. She still looks soaking wet, but on a day like today, you know she’s soaked by choice, and she’ll be able to dry out pretty quickly.

I eventually continued to the north end, and spotted the great blue heron fishing on our side of the river.

At the bridges, the cliff and barn swallows continue to go about their business, and on my way back south, I stopped by the pond one more time in hopes of spotting the green heron. I had no luck with that, but instead I got to watch the single remaining and now nearly-grown wood duck duckling from the first batches wrestle with its mom over a tadpole she had caught. It’s tricky enough to get a good picture when they are just wrestling with the tadpole, but adding in another hungry duck meant that this picture was the best I could do. Mom’s got the tadpole in her bill just under water, and the duckling is just about to make another grab for it, but Mom won out in the end.

At the south end of the pond, I could hear one of the many fledglings around these days begging for food in a tree right overhead, and as I searched for it, this Baltimore oriole poked out of the leaves and stole the shot.

Once the oriole got what it was after and took off, I did find the little crier, and it appears to be a northern cardinal, based on its short and stout beak.

Continuing south, I stopped by the pollinator garden, and found this powdered dancer (Argia moesta), which I suspect we’ve seen before, but never in this detail. Oh, and it is posing on the mat they have put down to kill the sod grass before expanding the garden, in case you are wondering.

Just to the west of the dancer, also eschewing all the pretty flowers, I found this female blue dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis), which we have seen before, but only in the male form. If you click on the image and zoom in, you can see the individual lenses of its compound eye, especially in the bright spot on the left eye reflecting the sun. I’m not sure I’ve managed to pull that off before.

At the weeds beside the soccer fields, there was another buckeye warming itself in the sun.

There was a male widow skimmer, and perhaps only the third male I’ve ever seen.

Finally, I spotted another monarch, and like the buckeye, it appeared to be more hungry for warmth than sugar at the moment.

Lastly, I’m thrilled to report that someone, perhaps an angler thanking me for all my help with his gear, left me my first park beer of the year, and a fine one at that. What a nice way to start July. Thanks!

It was a tad breezy this morning, but the skies were crystal clear so it was light enough for me to go out before sunrise, which is always a treat. Better yet, soon after I arrived, the parks department closed the parkway to through traffic for the Shorewood Farmers Market today, so I got to enjoy the park with even less car noise than usual. How sweet it was.

Anyway, at the pond, there were three wood duck hens again, along with the single duckling, and here are the hens enjoying each other’s company on a peaceful Sunday morning.

The green heron was kind enough, perhaps due to the enhanced tranquility, to grant us a nice, eye-level view.

When I got to the river, I found the beaver at the southern tip of the northern island, where we’ve seen it before, and here it is appearing to be munching quietly on its breakfast.

But then, as I took another shot, just to see if I could hold the camera a little stiller or the autofocus would latch onto the beaver’s fur a little better, I could not believe what I saw. Check out the little face that has suddenly appeared just to the right of the first beaver. There are two of them!

Well then, I had to take a lot more pictures, and check out who joined the first two from the left. Now there are three! The second one, who has moved in front of the first one, even appears to be holding its little tail up for us.

And finally, for the cherry on top, a fourth one pokes its little face up over the rump of the second one. It’s a whole dang family, and there really were mouths to feed yesterday. Outstanding! (Please note that in all the excitement, I may have misjudged which one is which, in what order they appeared, and to whom belongs that little tail.)

I took a moment to let the joy of seeing all that sink in, and then headed up to the far north end to check on the swallows under the bridge. I’m happy to report that they all appear to be still doing fine, but the fun sight was this cedar waxwing who perched pretty close after competing with the swallows for bugs flying over the water. The backlighting was brutal, so it’s not much of a portrait, but they seldom let me get this close, so I’ll take what I can get.

On my way back south along the river, a noisy murder of crows alerted me that something was afoot, and it didn’t take long for this Cooper’s hawk to start keening to reveal what it was: a Cooper’s hawk being mobbed by a murder of crows.

Just above the falls and across the river, I found the great blue heron resting in the sun.

At the pollinator garden, I didn’t see any butterflies, but I did see our very first spot-winged glider (Pantala hymenaea).

At the thistles beside the soccer fields, I did see a few red admirals, of which we’ve seen plenty lately, and I was more excited to get another close look at an eastern pondhawk.

In the birch tree above the thistles, the indigo bunting, who is a regular there, was singing his song.

Finally, here’s a red admiral, after all, sipping nectar from a thistle blossom and giving us a rare glimpse of the intricately-patterned ventral (under/out) side of its wings.

See you in July!

Daylight came late yesterday, and the rain came early, so I didn’t have much to show you, and I opted to try again this morning. The sky was dark again today, but the clouds thinned out a bit, and they never leaked, so things went much better.

A single green heron has been hanging out at the pond for a while, and I glimpsed it yesterday, but today it seemed more concerned with drying out than evading my camera.

Better yet, a great blue heron was also at the pond, perhaps because the river is so high, fast, and brown lately, but we haven’t been seeing them at the pond much yet this year.

On my way over to the river, I heard our new buddy again, the red-headed woodpecker.

As I hiked north along the river, I spotted motion in the now-flooded side channel, and I was stunned to see a beaver dragging out a small branch it had just gnawed off some tree. I didn’t have a shot, however, so I high-tailed it up the trail in hopes of catching it where the channel connects to the river, and I arrived just in time. Phew!

Once it got out into the river, it was easier to see the branch it was towing behind.

I watched it through my binoculars as it swam to the northern island, and it climbed up right where we saw one climb up earlier in the month. I sure hope this means it has mouths to feed.

On my way back south, I managed to catch this chipmunk up in a crabapple tree, which I do not get to see very often.

It soon scampered back to earth, however, and joined one of its comrades in munching on the many mulberries littering the ground instead.

Back at the south end, I stopped by the thistles blooming along the west edge of the soccer fields and was thrilled to find our first common buckeye of the season.

There was also our first skipper of the season, this sharp little fiery skipper.

The weeds attract more than just butterflies, and here’s my very first cobra clubtail dragonfly (Gomphurus vastus)

Finally, our second damselfly of the season appears to be my very first familiar bluet (Enallagma civile)

Lastly, the one picture I did get yesterday is of this soaking wet female belted kingfisher on the far side of the pond. She did not look thrilled with me taking her picture.

Morocco sure was amazing, but I’m always glad to get back home, and temps in the mid 70s sure are easier to take than temps in the mid 100s. Besides the mild temps, the sky was clear, and the breeze was light, so it was a perfect morning to get back into Estabrook Park. Better yet, my good lens was waiting for me when I got home yesterday afternoon, and it appears to be working as good as new. Yay!

There were a dozen mallards on the pond, but none looked like a duckling, so let’s hope its mom hiked the one we had been seeing down to the river, or I just didn’t see it this morning. I did see one wood duck duckling and three hens, and I’m guessing the hen that duckling followed up onto a log is its mom.

At the river, I heard the now-somewhat-familiar sound of a red-headed woodpecker, and I eventually found it high over the southern island. I still have my fingers crossed that a pair will expand their range into Estabrook so that we can see them more regularly.

While I was hunting for the woodpecker, this grey squirrel on our side of the river, who was probably a youngster based on its behavior, seemed fascinated by me, and kept creeping closer for a better look. It got so close that I had to zoom out to get this picture.

Over the meadow at the north end, a Cooper’s hawk was soaring amongst the swallows and swifts as though it thought it might catch one, but I didn’t see it have any luck, and it eventually drifted east.

Meanwhile, at the north end of the meadow, this male indigo bunting was alternately singing and picking seeds out of the seedhead it is holding in its right claw.

After a few sightings earlier in the spring, the northern rough-winged swallows seemed to disappear for a while, but they were back big-time today. Perhaps all the nestlings are now fledglings.

Back at the south end, the big patch of weeds along the west side of the soccer fields is now full of blossoming thistle, which is attracting plenty of bugs, but here’s a female twelve-spotted skimmer, perched on a burdock burr from last summer, who might be just there for the warm sun.

The birch tree that stands in the middle of the patch regularly attracts house wrens, indigo buntings, and song sparrows. This is one of the latter.

And like the bunting above, my presence did not interrupt its singing.

Finally, the bugs on the flowers included this red admiral, …

this painted lady, …

and this bicolored striped sweat bee, the “official bee” of Toronto.

I mentioned cattle egrets when I showed you the glossy ibises we saw in Casablanca, and they are one of the most ubiquitous birds I’ve seen on this trip. In Meknes, when I went up to the rooftop to count birds in the morning and would see maybe a couple dozen storks flying over, I would also see at least five times that many cattle egrets. It was in Tétouan, however, when I got close enough for a decent picture. Here’s one perched on a wall behind the big fish market, …

and here’s a tree overflowing with them just down the hill a bit from that wall. I didn’t see any signs of nesting there and doubt there would be. Instead, they seem to like each other’s company, and that was a convenient location near the fish market from which they probably can get some tasty scraps.

We’re in Marrakesh now, and we did come by train, but we didn’t take the Express, so we had a nice leisurely ride watching the countryside turn from “hot-summer Mediterranean“, with rolling hills covered in olive trees with fields ready for haying, to “hot desert,” with not much growing at all, and it hit 105°F for our camel ride yesterday afternoon. There are still plenty of birds around, despite the climate, and here’s my latest attempt at getting a house bunting portrait from the rooftop of our new riad.

Finally, the common bulbuls have gone from “quite infrequent” in the north, to “pretty common” around here, and this is a pair posing the way I often get to see bulbuls do.

We’re taking the train to Fes today, so who knows what wildlife pictures, if any, I’ll be able to get, but here are a few left over from previous days. This first one isn’t very pretty, but I was still glad to get it. I’d been seeing large black birds flying in groups for days, and thought they were cormorants until I watched a group land in a dry field, which I can’t imagine cormorants ever doing. Well, that’s because these are glossy ibises (Plegadis falcinellus) instead, and while Anne and I were strolling around the vicinity of our hotel in Casablanca, before going to the airport to collect my sister, we found a slew of birds at a little puddle of water deep in the brush behind a fence. The black birds are the ibises, the white birds are western cattle egrets, and an added bonus were about a half dozen black-winged stilts. As we left, after sneaking a few pictures through the sticks, something “kicked the hive” because there were suddenly dozens of birds in the sky. Lucky timing!

Also by the hotel in Casablanca, there seemed to have been some kind of land snail infestation. I have never seen so many.

Fast forward to here in Meknes, and there is a pair of kestrels, perhaps a lesser kestrels (Falco naumanni) nesting in the medina wall. This one looks like the male, ….

and this one looks like a female or youngster. Either way, it was calling quite adamantly to the male hiding around the corner.

Finally, here’s another butterfly from Volupilis yesterday, and this one appears to b a brown argus (Aricia agestis)

My sister did arrive safely, and after a quick visit to Casablanca, we took the train inland to Meknes, “one of the four Imperial cities of Morocco.” Here we are staying in a riad, which is very nice, and which gives me a nice roof-top view of the city. While out on the coast, we saw a few storks, just like the ones we saw in South Holland, but here they are everywhere, some towers host a half dozen nests, and here’s one flying over our riad early this morning.

The morning skies are also full of swifts, and here is a momentarily-tight formation of alpine swifts (Tachymarptis melba), which I believe I have seen before on a previous trip to this side of the Atlantic, but never photographed.

Closer to the ground, or rooftops in this case, the first singers I hear in the morning are house buntings (Emberiza sahari), a completely new bird for me, and here’s the best picture I’ve managed so far.

Today, we took a taxi to the nearby Roman ruins of Volubilis, which were amazing in their own right, but I found also found more larks there, and this time they are Thekla’s larks (Galerida theklae). They look very similar to the crested larks we saw in Asilah, but the song is different.

There were also some beautiful butterflies visiting the wild flowers growing amongst the ruins, and this one appears to be one of the many Polyommatus species, maybe even Austaut’s Blue (Polyommatus celina)

They’re pretty on the topside/inside, too.

On the ground, I also noticed this unusual looking “grasshopper”, which could be in either the Truxalis or Acrida genus.

Finally, as we were just about to head back to Meknes, I glimpsed this beauty flying by.

Happily, it didn’t go far before stopping to perch again.

When I saw that big beak that lines up with the dark stripe through the eye, the first thought that popped into my head was “roller”, and sure enough, this is my very first European roller (Coracias garrulus), the only roller that breeds in Europe but also ” the Middle East, Central Asia and the Maghreb.”

Lastly, I did hear from Fuji that they automatically shipped my good lens back to Shorewood on the first day that I arrived here in Morocco. Perfect timing, right? If I have somehow managed to keep FedEX from sending it back to New Jersey while I’ve been away, I might someday be able to show you some nice clear pictures again.

I was out in the field next to our hotel in Asilah again early yesterday morning when I started hearing little sounds from the grass around me, which I first thought were coming from insects, but instead they were coming from these tiny and aptly named zitting cisticolas (Cisticola juncidis). I have never heard of cisticolas before, let alone zitting ones, even though they can be found in South Holland.

When I first spotted this cutie in the bushes right beside the hotel, I thought the dark cap made it a great tit, as we did see in South Holland, and then the separation between the eyeline and the cap is reminiscent of a Eurasian blue tit, which we’ve also seen there, but their range does not extend across the Mediterranean. Instead, this is our very first African blue tit (Cyanistes teneriffae).

After that fruitful outing, Anne and I drove the kids up to Tangier to catch a ferry to Spain, and then we went into the medina to see what we could see. There were a few birds about, especially swifts, but the best picture I could get was of this yellow-legged gull, which we first saw in Slovenia, on the wall of the kasbah.

After a fun evening and overnight in Tangier, this morning we started back south and stopped at Cape Spartel, where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic, and where this wild boar (Sus scrofa) came out of the woods looking for something to eat. Happily, I was not on the menu. It reminds me of the javelina we saw in Big Bend State Park, but I read that they are only “somewhat” related.

Finally, a bit further down the coast, we stopped again, and the bushes were full of speckled wood butterflies, same as we used to see in South Holland.

My sister, the vet who saved the Carolina warbler from a glue trap, is joining us tomorrow morning, and then we’re taking the train to Meknes. I can’t wait to see what we find there.

After a couple of long, but uneventful flights on Turkish Airways, and a nice long layover in the Istanbul airport, we all finally arrived safely in Morocco yesterday afternoon, at which point we rented a car and drove north along the coast to Asilah, a bit south of Tangier. This morning, after a solid nine hours of sleep and a fine breakfast, I strolled around the grounds of the hotel, and these are some of the sights I got to see.

There is a big field across the road from the hotel, and in the hedge of weeds between the road and the field, a few European greenfinches, which we’ve seen before in South Holland, were feasting from blossoms already gone to seed.

A little river runs to the Atlantic along the north side of the hotel, and this little egret, which we’ve seen before in Mozambique and Slovenia, perched in a palm tree on the riverbank to preen.

Finally, there is a little bridge over that river, which is now closed to car traffic, and on which I captured this image of my very first crested lark (Galerida cristata).

Lastly, here’s a striped hawk-moth (Hyles livornica), which I believe feeds from flowers while hovering like a hummingbird, as we’ve seen snowberry clearwings do in Estabrook Park. This one was cold, however, and even crawled up onto my fingers so that I could take its picture in the sun, after which I left it on a bush in the garden to warm up at its leisure.