December doubles down!

The weather was just about as forecast in Estabrook Park this morning, with thick cloud cover, temps in the low 20s, light breezes, and windchills back up into the low teens. Four intrepid nature enthusiast came out to join me for our weekly wildlife walk, and this is who we saw.

Everyone wanted to see the redhead, so we went straight to the river and tried going north first. We counted a few geese, dozens of mallards, and a great horned owl was in the usual spot, but we couldn’t find a redhead. Instead, the exciting find was this merlin, whom we haven’t seen in a while, and who was perched high above the northern island and still just pulling the feathers out of its hot and fresh breakfast.

After spotting no odd ducks at the north end, we turned around and headed south. Just before we reached the open water again, across from the two radio towers, we heard another winter wren, and this one let us get a quick look.

We did hike farther south along the open water for a ways, but all we saw was more mallards, and we eventually returned north to check for the Oregon-type dark-eyed junco at the pond, but all we saw were slate-colored juncos, a couple dozen house sparrows, a few dozen house finches, and one bald eagle up high and gliding north. That brought our bird count up to 24 species, which is pretty good for December in southeastern Wisconsin.

By then everyone had to get on with their day, but I hadn’t taken a picture of the owl earlier, and I could hear some crows cawing at the river, so I stopped by one more time to see what was up. Sure enough, three crows were mobbing the owls, of which there were now two. In all the commotion, I did manage to sneak one good picture, but the crows eventually decided they had done their duty, left the owls in peace, and so did I.

I hiked home south along the river, just in case we somehow missed a redhead earlier, and I had no better luck, but I did get this nice portrait of the hermit thrush we had glimpsed before.

Finally, as I approached the far south end, I glimpsed a shape out on the ice that extends from the far riverbank, and I thought for a moment it might be that duck we’ve been searching for, but it turned out to be a muskrat instead. I would have liked to capture its face, but the little stinker only let me have this one shot, and then it slipped out of the cool air and right back into the relatively-balmy 32°F water.