Winter taps the brakes…

Temps were back up into the mid-twenties, and the wind chill only down into the teens, plus the skies were still crystal clear, and the wind wasn’t howling, so it was a perfect morning to visit Estabrook Park.

I was greeted as soon as I stepped out my front door by this red-tailed hawk perched high over the Oak Leaf Trail and waiting for the sun to rise. I usually check the trees and power poles behind the Shorewood police station for starlings, who seem to like hanging out there, but they were all elsewhere this morning, for some reason.

As soon as I got across Wilson Drive and the Oak Leaf Trail, I spotted a couple of white-tailed does by the southern bathhouse, and they posed just perfectly. What a nice start to the morning.

Farther north, as I was counting the mallards and checking for gadwalls on the river, this herring gull dropped in and caught a fish for breakfast right away.

Now that the pond is completely frozen over, there’s not much to see until the day warms up a bit and the little songbirds start flitting around in the bushes, so I continued upriver and found this young bald eagle perched high over the northern island. This appears to be its first year out of the nest, based on how dark its eyes are, so maybe it is one of the Milwaukee County fledglings we’ve been hearing about. In any case,”Welcome to Estabrook Park, and we hope you like it here!”

As I was walking back south on the river trail after counting the geese and more mallards, I glimpsed this little red squirrel run up that tree far ahead and tuck into that hole. I hoped I might get a second chance at a nice picture if I could coax it back out, so I got closer and made the “tut-tut” sound that some folks make to call a cat, and look who came out to ask, “You talkin’ to me?“

Finally, I stopped by the pond again, and this time the cat bird who opted not to fly south this year, at least not yet, was ready for a portrait, so it called me over with its “meow” cry, and then it just posed with a faraway look on its face as if contemplating the error of its ways and asking, “What have I done?”