
It’s raining almost all day today and most of tomorrow, so I have no excuse not to finish this blog post I started a week ago.
These photos are from September 6 and September 8. I have returned to Riverside several times since. In my usual fashion, I hope to get around to that eventually.
There have been as many as 9 Great Egrets gathering just south (or is that west?) of the former Hofmann Dam. To illustrate this point I’ve borrowed a photograph from September 13, although I couldn’t get all 9 into the photo at once.

But back to the week before, when I saw only one Bay-breasted Warbler briefly on the 8th.

This Black-and-White Warbler was a little easier to photograph.






I had good looks at a Chestnut-sided Warbler.







Tennessee Warblers have been plentiful this migration, although it’s been hard to find one closer.






I feel like I have seen more Veerys this fall. Not a warbler, but a very special thrush.
I had seen a male Black-throated Blue Warbler at the Chicago Portage a day or two earlier, but was unable to get a good photograph. This one in Riverside Lawn made up for it.





I had some trouble figuring out the first bird below, but it seemed to suggest American Redstart to me. Now I have my doubts, though. Could it be an Orange-crowned? If so, it would be rare for the early date. I leave it up to conjecture. This is a never-ending challenge. In any event, the second bird is a first-year male American Redstart with no doubt about it.
Nashville Warblers started showing up and I have seen many more lately.
Magnolia Warblers don’t seem to be as plentiful this year. It’s been challenging capturing the ones I have barely seen. I used to consider them rather extroverted. The bird at the top of the post is a Magnolia Warbler.
So what about all those other birds?
I have seen one Double-crested Cormorant on virtually each occasion.


Mallards have begun to congregate in the river.


There have not been so many Great Blue Herons but I have seen at least two, maybe three on occasion, though they tend to be in solitary locations.
On the 6th, when I saw very few birds, I was treated to a Solitary Sandpiper flying by and then landing where I could get a few images.


Crossing the swinging foot bridge, I stopped to photograph this rather odd-looking spider.

Flocks of blackbirds – mainly Common Grackles and Red-wingeds – have begun to move around here and there.

And Gray-cheeked Thrushes seem to be in abundance this season as well.
Oh I have so many more photos to share with you. I will try to take advantage of the rain making me stay inside and not take anymore! But other inside activities, if you can call them that, beckon. It’s cool enough to catch up on some cooking. There’s the biweekly cleaning of the dining room and the weekly cage cleaning (both are to be accomplished today). Musical routines are always adhered to. I could go on. Perhaps most frustrating is the book I’ve been trying to write finally working out in my head. Finding the time in to get it written is the issue. If not on a rainy day, then when? Let’s see how loud the voices in my head become. To be continued.