Kohler-Andrae 2025, Day 4

We did have a big bike ride yesterday, and so I never managed to capture any wildlife pictures, as predicted. Happily, we had a beautiful morning in Kohler-Andrae State Park today, and the wildlife was plentiful, so here is some of what I saw.

There were at least three deer in the Kohler Dunes State Natural Area, and this is the buck.

I had only heard a towhee or two in the park before today, but they were thick this morning, and I saw at least four. Here’s the one who posed the nicest. In Estabrook they always appear to be hiding, so it is nice to see them putting on a show for a change.

There are still a couple of purple martins hanging out at the martin house, and here’s a young-looking one.

The most plentiful bird by far has got to be the cedar waxwing, and I counted at least four dozen in a couple of flocks, but sometimes they would come down to eye level to forage.

We’ve seen thirteen-lined ground squirrels here before, and one even gave us a nice close up, but this one let us have a good look at some of those thirteen lines.

The butterflies were also plentiful today, and I saw dozens of monarchs, a buckeye, a red admiral, a silver-spotted skipper, but I believe this is my very first broad-winged skipper (Poanes viator), as far as I can tell.

Finally, we eventually did see a viceroy in Estabrook, and only once as far as I can remember, but the first one I ever saw was up here just the week before.