Happy 5th Anniversary!

It was five years ago today, on March 26, that I breathlessly emailed family and friends that I had spotted a wood duck on the pond in Estabrook Park. Before that day, I don’t believe I had ever seen one, let alone known their name. Here’s a look at that original picture.

For those of you who don’t remember, the COVID-19 pandemic was just getting started, UWM had already extended spring break for a second week, and they may have already told us to stay home until further notice. Long walks in the park seemed like a good idea at the time.

Well, five years have come and gone, we’ve seen a lot of critters, and I hope you’ve enjoyed them as much as I have. Thanks a ton for following along, and now let’s see who was in the park today.

After a brief lull, when I suspect the ones who had been with us through the winter had flown north, now we have winter wrens again, whom I suspect are also on their way north, but from points south of here. Either way, I always love to see them.

Trees are starting to blossom in the park, I’d bet this is a maple, based on the color, and this grey squirrel was chowing down on them as though it has been waiting for fresh vegetables all winter long. I’ve seen them eating seeds that haven’t dropped yet, but I don’t believe I’ve seen them eating blossoms before, and I sure hope the trees have budgeted for that.

The golden-crowned kinglets are becoming more plentiful, and I followed this one for a while, taking plenty of shots of moving birds and empty branches, before it eventually appeared to say, “Let’s try an art shot. You know, with a dark background, a soft focus, and my head turned just so,” to which I replied, “Sure, Sweetie, whatever you want, just so long as I finally get a picture.”

The red squirrels are out and enjoying the spring weather, too, and this one appeared, for all the world, to be licking the sap off of a leaky box elder branch. The squirrel was at it for a while, and I have a few pictures, but this is the one in which you can even see its pink little tongue. I did not know they did that.

The big surprise at the river today was this merlin, perched high over the upstream island. I believe that the last time we saw one was back in December, so “Welcome back, Darling!”

The big surprise at the pond was finding the goose finally nesting on the island. She’s about two weeks behind last year’s schedule, but two days ahead of 2022, and four days behind 2021, That’s pretty consistent timing, given that she probably doesn’t even have a proper calendar. As I’ve written before, if everything goes okay, now we’ve got just 32 to 48 days to wait until gosling time! Yay!

Finally, the wood ducks on the pond this morning were more skittish than usual, but I couldn’t go without a wood duck picture today, of all days, so here’s a nice one from last Monday, when I already had plenty of other pictures to show you.

That’s it for today, and tune in tomorrow to find who’s the next new bird in town. Oh, and thanks to the folks who came out for my North Shore School for Seniors class yesterday. You had a lot of great questions, and I hope you had as good a time as I did.