Summer?

It was so calm and warm today that it felt like summer! Nice weather for a relaxing stroll, but not if you want to find a decent crop of north bound spring migrants. I took a walk at the Beanery lunch time and once again, the Cattle Egret that had been present early this morning was not there later in the day. Birds were pretty hard to find, but for a scattering of resident Northern Cardinals, Carolina Chickadees and the like. The summery feel was further enhanced by a fly-by from my first Monarch of the year, several Orange Sulphurs flitting over a weedy field and the first Grey Hairstreak fed from the carpet of European Field Pansies.

The day started - for the second time this week - with a Bald Eagle chasing an Osprey and causing it to drop its hard-earned fish. It ended in disaster for both, however, as the fish landed in a garden near Lily Lake and, no doubt, the Fish Crows ended up the only ones to benefit!

Gray Hairstreak feeding at European Field Pansy [photo by Mike Crewe]

My first dragonfly of the year south of the canal - a female Blue Corporal [photo by Mike Crewe]