Sunday in the Park with Traci

A magician had evidently given up the trade, because in the Ravine this morning we saw a white dove, the kind that gets released for peace, or pulled out of sleeve, and then, later, a white rabbit, with cute bits of black around the ears. Not sure where the dove came from, but the rabbit was probably let go by some idiots who never should have purchased the thing to begin with. The rabbit was not consulting its pocketwatch, although on Lookout Hill there was a bit of mad tea party, with ladies in sort-of-period (hipster Victorian) costume. But of course there were other beauties in the park. Yesterday’s heat wave pulled up a passel of rare birds. The big bird-dogs counted fifteen species of warbler. I missed it, being up-state, but there were still some aftershocks today. We saw Prothonotary and Blackburnian, the first a yellow beauty, the second an amazing flame-orange breasted bird, not rare but perhaps the most stunning of these tropical visitors. We also saw a Black-throated green warbler, but the big talk of yesterday, a very rare for these parts Townsend’s, was not glimpsed. A white-eyed vireo brought me up to 98 species for the year.