Not many perfect pictures despite a picture-perfect day.

It was a gorgeous morning in Estabrook Park with seasonably cool temps, crystal-clear skies, and nice-calm air. I was a bit surprised to find that the critters were laying low, however, perhaps in anticipation of the throngs of runners and spectators of the Milwaukee Marathon, but who knows.

One critter who was out and about was this eastern cottontail, who perhaps thought it could sneak in just a few more groceries before start time.

The screech-owl was in, and farther than usual, actually, but you can just make out its beak and plenty of its belly.

At the north end, most of the exotics have moved on, but the pied-billed grebe was still around. In fact, Dave said he saw two of them a bit downstream of me, so there might even have been three in total.

I didn’t see anything else that I could capture on film at the river, so I headed back over to the pond. There I plopped down on the bench on the west lawn, and once the gander climbed up to join me, on the lawn, not the bench, at least not yet, the wood ducks felt emboldened to come over to see if I was one of the old dudes that feeds the ducks. Well, I’m not, because it is supposed to be bad for them, but I did get some nice pictures before they realized their mistake. Do yourself a favor and click on this wood duck image so you can zoom to see all the fine detail in his face.

To whet your appetite, I’ve cropped the image, but wordpress still shows a lesser copy. When I view it in flickr, which you can, too, if you click on the image, it looks a lot sharper, and the rainbow of colors in his cheek feathers is worth the hassle. Trust me.

Meanwhile, a mallard drake gave me a look that seemed to say, “Big whoop, he’s got a little purple on his cheek. Sheesh, my whole head turns purple in the right light. Where’s my closeup?” With an attitude like that, Buddy, you’re lucky to get a picture at all.

Anyway, the forecast is for clouds and breeze tomorrow, but I believe I will head down to Lakeshore State Park to meet up with the Milwaukee Birders at 8am anyway. Maybe I’ll see you there.