Rising water, a Beaver, and a Flycatcher

Not a bad day for Mother’s Day….could have been better, but could have been worse too, given the weather we’ve experienced so far this year!  Have been out today experimenting with the newest camera – the Nikon – it appears the problems I was having with it were a faulty battery and not the camera itself…which is a relief!

We started out by going along Morris Valley Road to have a look at the estuary from that angle….the water is definitely infiltrating the grasslands…

from a bit further along – soon all of this will be water.  Lots of Marsh Wrens and Common Yellowthroat song out there.

the far end looking across at the nature trust land…could see a ‘lump’ in that furthest pond, couldn’t make out if it was a bird or a stump so zoomed in and took a picture..

turns out it was a pair of sleepy Mallard drakes.

Returning home from a visit to the nearest garden center, stopped to get a shot of the Harrison River from the highway…not so long ago that was all gravel bars out there.  Planned to get a picture of the Osprey nest beside the bridge, but it was raining, the Osprey were no where to be seen (they were there on the outward bound trip) and a Canada Goose was standing in the nest – so didn’t bother.

Walked over to the park in the afternoon and looked back along our ‘path’…just to show how much the water had risen just over night…here is the same view taken by my husband the evening before…

and, while we are in this spot and looking at my husband’s pictures…

here is a picture of one of the 2 Beaver he has been seeing in the bay by the viewing platform, pretty much every evening.

No beaver this afternoon but there was an American Goldfinch busy singing it’s heart out.

then over by the viewing platform…this Flycatcher…now comes the great dilemma of what kind of flycatcher…I am not good at identifying flycatchers…I’m guessing it was a Hammond’s…that guess based on the olive color I distinctly recall on the breast and a wash of it on the back, but Hammonds are supposed to have a tiny dark bill – is this one tiny enough? and they are also supposed to prefer being up in Coniferous trees while this one was happy down in the willows. No doubt we’ll have many more Flycatcher conundrums since the season is just starting!

I’ve done an awful lot of editing to this picture of a male Rufous Hummingbird – the bird was a barely visible speck in the distance…but this picture does show how the metallic ‘gorget’ can shine either brilliant red or green depending on the way the light hits it.  Barely visible to the left of the bird is a tiny bug that he flew out and grabbed seconds after I snapped this.

Lastly, for today, the log bay…the second lowest log now completely submerged…