A curious case of camera shyness..

It was a very nice April morning in Estabrook Park, and I was able to start my walk nice and early. Before I got very far, however, Donna of Milwaukee Birders texted to say she was on her way over to join a bird walk hosted by the Urban Ecology Center and featuring Charles Hagner. They were supposed to start in 15 minutes from the southern parking lot, which I could see across the soccer fields, so I hiked over to find out what it was all about.

Well, they had a good turnout, and there were even a couple of regulars from our Monday morning wildlife walks. Best of all, they invited me to tag along. Sweet.

When we got to the wide and slow part of the river below the falls, I was thrilled that the coot, whom I had mentioned might be there, actually was, and folks were able to see it. I wasn’t able to get a picture, but here’s a nice one from Thursday.

Even better, the pied-billed grebe was there as well, and the two of them swam together for a moment, which was very interesting to see. I had even less of a chance of capturing that on film, unfortunately, so here’s one more grebe picture from Tuesday.

Next, we headed to the pond, and I had a hope of showing everyone the screech-owl on the way, but the little rascal seems to have a sixth sense for detecting when I’ve got company. I even went ahead to check on it by myself, but when I got to its nook, there was nobody home. Oh well, two out of three ain’t bad, or so I’ve heard. Anyway, here’s another look from yesterday, when it somehow knew I had nobody with me.

After the pond, the group was heading back to the parking lot, but I still had about an hour on my meter, so I headed to the north end, where I didn’t have any better luck with pictures. Instead, I came upon this golden-crowned kinglet on my way back home, and it may be the first time I’ve ever seen one stationary for more than a second. When I first saw it, the sun was nearly behind it, and it just sat there as I walked around far enough to see its lit side. Then the little cutie roused from its minute-long power nap and resumed furiously foraging for bugs.

That’s the show for today, folks, and the forecast for tomorrow looks beautiful, so wish me better luck.