In early October, on one of the first chilly mornings that warmed into a fantastic weekend, we returned to Alligator Lake Park. It was also our first adventure with my new lens hood. Useful accessory.

Neither of the photos in my bird books show the prominent yellow eye ring, but we believe this is a yellow-billed cuckoo. It was a very curious bird, like the mockingbirds, which means it was actually facing me instead of the usual bird butt poses I end up with in my pictures.

The coots were not present in huge numbers as we’ve seen on previous visits, but there were several pied-billed grebes.

Viceroys (below) and gulf fritillaries were the most prevalent butterflies that we saw.

Many pollinators were interested in these flowers. I believe they are beggar-ticks.

A checkered skipper.

There were many pondhawks warming up or flying about. This larger dragonfly, which hovered for a few moments over the path, seemed to be hunting some of them.

Mike took this picture of the same species, common green darner.

When we got back to the car, we found two mockingbirds fighting. There was a little blood, but both flew away just fine after their dispute was resolved.