A little excitement on a cold day…

It was a chilly morning in Estabrook Park, with the thermometer at 3°F for sunrise, despite a blanket of clouds that prevented the sun from warming things up much. At least the wind didn’t feel too bad in most places.

My first surprise of the day was finding the muskrat up on the ice again, in almost the same spot as yesterday, despite the drop in temperature. Just seeing that bare tail sitting out on the ice in the open like that gives me a chill.

The next picture worth taking came at the pond, where this “Oregon form” dark-eyed junco was on break from collecting seeds.

Finally, for Estabrook, there were also a pair of American tree sparrows at the pond, whom I don’t get to see very often, busily foraging along the edge between the forest and the lawn, and this is the one I managed to capture on film.

I wrapped up a little earlier than usual, partially because of the cold, and I didn’t have anything else going on this morning, so I paid another visit to Grant Park to see if the evening grosbeak (Hesperiphona vespertina) would show itself this time. Happily, I barely waited 15 minutes and then suddenly it was there. Woo Hoo! I read that they are an “irregular migrant. When cone crops in northern coniferous forests are poor, Evening Grosbeaks “irrupt” in fall and spend the winter far south of their normal range. These irruptions formerly happened every 2–3 years in the eastern United States but have become less frequent.” Hence, the hoopla over this individual.

Then, per usual, I stopped along the lake shore on my way back north, and the most interesting sight was a few goldeneyes in the Lakeshore State Park lagoon. It started with this pair appearing to perform a little mating dance.

Then, just as the drake made his signature move, throwing his head all the way onto his back, another drake tried to horn in on the action.

This quickly led to a brief kerfuffle between the drakes.

And finally, they had to dry themselves off. I, perhaps as did they, lost track of the hen in all that excitement, but I don’t think she went far.

I mentioned earlier that the wind wasn’t too bad at Estabrook, but that was not the case at Lakeshore. Oowee, it was cold there. I’ve been home a couple of hours already, and I’m still warming up. I see it is supposed to be even colder tomorrow, and I can’t wait to see if the cold brings anyone new our way. I’ll keep you posted.