Monthly Archives: December 2021

I don’t have a lot of time this morning, and it looks gray as heck out there again anyway, so let’s do a little year in review instead. Here are some of my favorite pictures from 2021. Nothing brightens up a gray day in January like a male northern cardinal on sumac, eh? But aContinue reading “2021 wasn’t all bad…”

The exciting news is that we have new arrivals in the park again, this time a foursome of female common mergansers, the likes of which we haven’t seen since March. Here are the two that swam closest together. Meanwhile, the mallards continue going about their business and achieved some nice duck density in this image.Continue reading “Just waiting for the snow to arrive…”

Brrr. It was colder than it looked this morning, and I should have checked the “real feel” temperature before heading out. My hands are still pretty stiff from the cold as I try to type this. Anyway, it seemed as though the big animals saw my post yesterday and took offense or took pity onContinue reading “The pendulum swings the other way…”

Despite a few nice little breaks, the gray skies are hanging around like a Gloomy Gus this month. Even the buffleheads, the smallest diving ducks in North America, and whom I usually find hard at work, were sleeping in this morning. This gray squirrel isn’t even the smallest squirrel in the park, let alone NorthContinue reading “A morning of miniatures…”

Despite the weather, or perhaps because of it, it was quite a nice morning in Estabrook. I didn’t get there especially early, but I still got to make the first human footprints in a lot of the fresh sloppy snow lying on many parts of the river trail. Things were pretty quiet on my wayContinue reading “Plenty to see on a gray Monday…”

As dawn broke this morning, the sky looked like it was going to be clear, so I hustled out the door soon after I noticed, and it didn’t take long for that to pay off. I had just crossed Wilson Drive, stepped into the park, and hadn’t even crossed the Oak Leaf Trail yet whenContinue reading “Happy Foxing Day!”

Look who I spotted hustling home this morning with the beaver equivalent of a vegan holiday feast. Fresh willow bark, and just in time, baby, just in time! Meanwhile, our favorite blue heron was back to fishing again and even farther south than yesterday. Finally, one of the little red squirrels was wondering what theContinue reading “More last-minute deliveries…”

The grey skies and mild temperatures continued this morning, and we even had some fog for icing on the cake, but I had my rounds to make, so off to the park I went. I didn’t see much more than mallards along the river until I reached the falls, where the slow and wide waterContinue reading “A just-in-time arrival!”

The cloud cover was back, and warmer air came with it. I saw the trio of deer again, but it was still too dark for my camera to work this morning. Instead, here’s another picture from yesterday morning when there was a little bit more light. Along the river, I heard the kingfisher again, butContinue reading “Oh, sure. Now the sun peaks through…”

As many of you probably already knew, yesterday was the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year, and we were supposed to have exactly 9 hours (plus 0 minutes and 0 seconds) between sunrise and sunset here in Shorewood. Today, I read that we get 3 whole additional seconds of sunshine, and that’s aContinue reading “Let there be more light…”