June 23

I hadn’t gone very far this morning when I noticed something in a tree. It was a weird angle so I had to walk around in order to make sense of what I saw. It was this Mourning Dove sitting on a nest. She seems so serene and calm. Doves are usually so skittish and quick to fly off but apparently not while nesting. The day was overcast and the fog had just moved back off shore. The Osprey were active around the platform but not much of anything else was moving. At the Overlook the duck family was busy eating while some Yellowlegs and Killdeer were working the edges of the panne. The Boardwalk was quiet as well. There were some Egrets in the creek by the Winthrop side but only white bits showed occasionally above the bank.  On top of the mound in the park, I watched an Ibis glide across the sky to land in the Overlook panne. The long bill in flight with the trailing legs is very distinctive. As I walked down the far side, there is a big patch of thistle and three or four Goldfinches were active.

This was a real technicolor moment. The humidity was uncomfortable and I had lathered on the bug spray while wearing long sleeves. I was uncomfortable and sweating but this bird perched on a thistle made it all worth while.

Ciao!

-Jorge

This entry was posted on June 23, 2008 at 11:52 am and is filed under Daily - the next year. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.