Signs of Life in Estabrook Park

A disturbance in the force…

The weather this morning in Estabrook Park was more similar to yesterday’s than the forecast had led me to expect. The air was mostly still, and the sky was pretty clear, but sunrise temps were in the low 40s. Brrrr. I could see my breath.

The main star of the show today was this youngish bald eagle on the river between the two islands. The color of its head plumage suggests that it is about 3-4 years old, but the other birds who might normally be on the water, such as the gadwall, wigeon, killdeer, or snipes, appeared to treat it as “fully armed and operational”, because there was no sign of any of them. The original version of this image isn’t the greatest, but it’s a lot better than the rendering WordPress appears ready to send you, so if you want to zoom in to see what color eyes this eagle has, you know what to do.

I didn’t see a single warbler today, which doesn’t mean they’re all gone yet, but if there are any left, they might have been waiting for the sun to warm things up a bit. Luckily, more migrants keep arriving to make the show go on, for now, and here’s our first Lincoln’s sparrow of the season.

When I spotted this pretty little bird, I got equally excited because I thought that pink-looking-beak meant it was our first field sparrow of the season, but now I’m not so sure. The light brown stripe projecting from the back of the eye suggests that it could be a very pale immature white-crowned sparrow. We’ll have to see what the experts say when they weigh in.

At least I had no trouble identifying this red-bellied woodpecker, though I could have used a little better look at the head to see if it has a male’s red crown or only a female’s red nape. The interesting detail for me, however, is that I watched it make at least 6 trips from a nearby berry bush to this dead ash trunk to stash away berries, because I had no idea they did that.

Here it is just about to stuff that berry into a crack in the bark. I have seen them sip sap from trees during the winter, and Tom shared that amazing picture of one pulling a bat out from behind a flap of bark, but this behavior is a new one for me. Ha!

And here it is with just the tip of its tongue sticking out. What a clever bird.

Finally, I didn’t see a single butterfly today, so here’s that clouded sulpher I saw yesterday.

The forecast for tomorrow morning is cool, cloudy, and breezy, so I wonder who will be out and about.

Autumn doubles down…

Man, if I thought yesterday’s cool weather marked the return of fall, the cold air this morning in Estabrook Park really cemented it. Yikes! I had to break out a poofy coat, and I wished I had also opted for gloves during the first hour or so.

There were still plenty of kinglets foraging in the trees today, but I only saw two warblers, total. There was a yellow-rumped by the river at the north end, but before I got that far upstream, I heard this puffed-up northern waterthrush foraging at the water’s edge.

A bit farther upstream, but still short of the meadow, I found our first fox sparrow of the fall. I didn’t dare move to reduce some of that backlighting, and I might not have had a shot anyway, even if the bird didn’t also move, so this is the image we’re stuck with. Don’t bother viewing it in flickr, because the full-resolution version is no better, alas.

There were at least two Cooper’s hawks, again, at the meadow, and at least one of them was calling. This one looks mature, and the other one looked like a youngster, but this was the best image, and you may find it worth your while to view the full-resolution version on flickr.

As if a couple of Cooper’s wasn’t enough, the osprey was also busy fishing, and it even perched over our riverbank a couple of times. You may enjoy a zoom in on this image, too.

The first big surprise of the day, however, came out on the water where I found another “odd duck” dabbling amongst the mallards. I didn’t see any signs of the gadwall, so today the role was played instead by our first American widgeon of the season. By amazing coincidence, a wigeon first appeared last fall on October 6. How’s that for timing?!?!

As I walked down the old boat ramp in hopes of a better wigeon picture, I inadvertently spooked two dark, robin-sized birds that had been foraging on the exposed river bottom. Happily, they didn’t go far, must have been quite hungry, and were soon back at it. Give a warm welcome to our first rusty blackbirds of the season. One granted us a much nicer portrait last October, so here’s hoping we get so lucky again.

The biggest surprise of the morning came as I waited for the blackbirds to come back out of hiding. I had heard and seen at least one killdeer, so when I saw a pair of small shorebird wings, I thought at first it was just the killdeer flitting around. Things got a whole lot more exciting when it landed, however, and I realized it was our first Wilson’s snipe of the year, and only our third Wilson’s snipe sighting ever in Estabrook. Even better, there were two of them, but they did a good job of preventing me from getting a picture of them together. Maybe next time.

Finally, on my way back south, this little bird caught my eye, mostly because it wasn’t darting for cover as the white-throated sparrows and dark-eyed juncos have been doing since they arrived. Once I had a nicely over-exposed picture to show us the details on its dark side, that big white eyebrow tipped me off that this was our first purple finch of the season, and a female or immature one with brown streaks instead of the raspberry-red wash that the males sport.

Lastly, I didn’t see a single monarch, on the Mexican sunflowers or otherwise, but there were a couple of other butterflies out and keeping low to the ground: a bunch of clouded sulphers and this one fiery skipper.

The forecast calls for a tad more warmth and a lot more clouds tomorrow morning, but the air should be nearly still, at least for the first couple of hours after sunrise, so I can’t wait to see who we find next!

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.