More wildlife than walkers today…

It was another beautiful morning in Estabrook Park, and it seemed that the Canadian wildfire smoke, which had dimmed yesterday a bit, has mostly moved on.

My first treat of the morning came on the river, just north of the falls, when I saw that a big section of a cottonwood tree had fallen into the water, and then I noticed a little movement among the branches. It turns out that I was not the first to discover this literal windfall, and here’s a beaver busily taking advantage of it.

Just a bit upstream of the beaver, I was pleasantly surprised to find ten wood duck ducklings that look nearly full grown. In fact, I can’t even decide if there’s a mom in the group or not. It’s great to see that we should have plenty of new wood ducks to come visit us next spring.

Speaking of “moms”, look who brought her fawn out to greet the day on the upstream island.

Then it was time for me to hustle up to the parking lot to greet the 7 a.m. wildlife walkers, which turned out to be only John Kasper today, who has led walks for me while I’ve been away. Similarly, the 8 a.m. crew turned out to be only Jeff Bentoff, who sent us that awesome screech owl picture a few summers ago. Together, we thought maybe folks were staying home to avoid the smoke, and we did see plenty of birds, but the only picture I took was of another softshell turtle on the far riverbank.

Then John mentioned that he had just seen bobolinks on the south side of town, and Jeff said he’d love to see bobolinks in Milwaukee, a sentiment that I immediately seconded, so we wrapped things up in Estabrook, and Jeff drove us down to the southside. At first, all we were seeing were savannah sparrows perched and swallows on the wing.

But the Milwaukee bobolinks eventually began to appear, and here’s a female.

And finally, here are a couple of males, in various stages of getting their breeding plumage in or molting it out. Thanks for the tip, John, and for the lift, Jeff!

Lastly, the tall grasses and wildflowers also brought us our first black swallowtail of the season. Yay!

Oh, and don’t forget! The Friends of Estabrook Member Picnic is tomorrow afternoon, Tuesday, July 15 from 5 to 7:30 at the beer garden, and the invite explicitly states “feel free to bring new friends,” so come on out and join us if you’re able.