A winter blast arrives at last…

Temps were only in the high 20s this morning in Estabrook Park, but a stiff breeze out of the west brought the windchill down into the single digits. As we like to say, “that’s brisk!” The good news is that this should bring some ice to the river, which I have a hope will finally bring us some exotic winter waterfowl, such as goldeneyes and buffleheads. In the meantime, the partly cloudy skies were letting through plenty of sunlight and that often makes for some pretty pictures.

At the north end, one of our owls was in their usual spot, and less buried in the sticks than the last couple of days, probably in hopes of soaking up some of that sun.

By the pond, the black-capped chickadees were doing their thing, and no, I did not rotate this picture.

Just below the chickadee, this red squirrel seemed frozen by the recent change in the weather, and after this picture, I turned to let it bask in the sun a bit longer.

As I approached the river, across from the pair of radio towers, I could hear the goldfinches foraging among the low spindle trees that grow there, and I spotted one on a branch above the fray, but it seemed bigger than I would expect from a goldfinch. Well, that’s because it was a poofed-up eastern bluebird instead, which really took me by surprise, especially since there were four of them. They’re year-round range just clips the southern tips of Illinois and Indiana, so these little darlings have a few hundred miles yet to go, and they’re running a bit behind schedule.

Finally, ice is forming on the river, mostly along the edges where the water moves slowly, but the dusting of snow it received just before sunrise didn’t make for any sparkly pictures. Instead, here are some ice bells that formed since yesterday and merged into one big one by this morning.