After the wettest April on record in Milwaukee, followed immediately by the driest May on record, everyone around here is wondering what June is gonna do, and I am happy to report that after a few dry days, we’re having a nice rainy morning. Let’s hope it doesn’t get carried away in either direction and instead reverts to the norm.
Anyway, it wasn’t raining already at sunrise, but the cloud cover was already thick, so I got into Estabrook Park a little later than usual lately, and the guy who runs his German shepherd loose on the soccer fields, a double no-no in Milwaukee County Parks, was already at it, so I headed straight down to the river for a change. My reward for the detour was coming across our first mallard ducklings for the year, and here are six of the seven little foragers getting right to work under Mom’s watchful eyes. Woo hoo!
After that stop at the river, I hiked back up onto the bluff to continue north, and the next surprise of the morning was this masterpiece of survival digging a hole for her eggs right beside the paved path. That would seem like not the greatest location, but I’ve learned my lesson from previous attempts to suggest someplace else, and I left her to it.
Just a bit farther up the paved path I spotted our first damselfly of the year, this handsome American rubyspot.
I made it all the way to the pond before the rain started, but then the radar did not look promising, so I hightailed it back home. Thus, I’ve got room for a few more pictures, and here’s a blue jay wondering “will the kid eat that?”, which is silly, of course, because anyone who’s seen birds feed their kids knows that the kids will literally eat anything.
I had such a nice session with the dunlins yesterday that here’s another picture of their tight formation flying that came out pretty nice.
I found my first real bumble bee of the season, and it turns out to be an improbably named Lemon Cuckoo Bumble Bee (Bombus citrinus). The “lemon” part of the name is “due to its lemon-yellow color,” simply enough, but the “cuckoo” part is because it “invades the colonies of other bumble bees, kills the resident queen, and takes control over the population of workers inside.” Yikes! That’s a little more drama than I was expecting!
On a lighter note, the dame’s rockets blossoming beside the soccer fields also attract black swallowtails, and here’s one from Wednesday, when I showed you the clearwing moth instead.
I see that we’re due for showers overnight, but they should clear out by tomorrow morning, so here’s hoping that pans out and I get more time to collect pictures for you.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 