Sorry for the delay. It was a stupendous morning to return to Estabrook Park, despite the storms overnight, but it’s been a busy afternoon. The breeze was light, the air was warm, the sky was mostly clear, and there were plenty of lake flies in the air, so conditions were ideal for finding new arrivals.
I see that the wildlife walkers already noticed an uptick in the number of ruby-crowned kinglets yesterday, but I suspect that even more flew in since then, because I counted at least four dozen today. They were everywhere, and with that many subjects to choose from, I’d be embarrassed if I didn’t have at least one presentable picture to show you.
Other new arrivals, which may have snuck in after yesterday’s walk, were eastern towhees, and I counted at least four. This handsome devil is the one that selected the nicest background.
Although they are still considered “rare” for Milwaukee this early in the season, we had our third palm warbler sighting.
This next bird, a green-winged teal drake, is not technically “rare”, but they sure are infrequent in Estabrook and another first for the year.
In case all the grebes look the same to you, a pied-billed grebe has joined the horned grebe around the islands in the river, and here they are trying to take their naps together. The pied-billed is on the left and in front, and the horned is on the right and in back.
Finally, we’ve seen turtles for a while already this spring, but today I saw my first snapping turtle for the year. It is wild to contemplate that they were in their present form and already 24 million years old when the Chicxulub asteroid hit Earth 66 million years ago.
Well, the National Weather Service has just issued a tornado warning for our area, so I’d better wrap this up. Hopefully, things will be fine, and I’ll have another post for you by tomorrow.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 