After a nice rain to rinse the dust off everything, it was a magnificent morning in Estabrook Park, and my first treat of the day was finding another brood of mallard ducklings, nine this time, about halfway upstream. “Eat up, Kiddos!”
Even farther upstream, I also found another snapping turtle laying her eggs, and time will tell if the spot she chose gets enough sunlight and is high enough not to get flooded, but at least she had a much easier time digging the hole.
Meanwhile, just a bit offshore, the water is full of American toad tadpoles busily feeding on the algae growing on the rocks. I didn’t try counting them, but I would estimate their number to be in the hundreds, if not thousands. “Congratulations to everyone who contributed!”
I could hear killdeer out on the exposed river bottom, and as I tried to get a count of them, one flew in, but it was noticeably smaller than the others, and it only had one black band around its neck, not two. You can see it in the center of the picture below, while a more-traditional killdeer towers over it in the upper right corner.
Well, you’ll be stunned to learn that the smaller bird is not a young killdeer who just hasn’t gotten its second band yet. Instead, it is an entirely different species of bird, and our very first Semipalmated Plover (Charadrius semipalmatus) in the park. Long-time readers may recall that I’ve been able to show you one at McKinley Beach last spring and another on Caye Caulker in Belize last fall, but I’m especially thrilled to show you the one that finally found its way to our stretch of the Milwaukee River. “Welcome to Estabrook, Darling!”
The fine folks at ebird consider the plover to be “infrequent” in Milwaukee right now, but this next bird, a yellow-bellied flycatcher, is currently labeled “rare”! “You’re behind schedule, Sweetheart, and you’d better get the lead out or you’ll miss all the fun!”
Finally, on my way back downstream I found the wood duck family with five ducklings in almost the same spot as I had seen the mallards earlier, and they are starting to look noticeably bigger than when we first saw them just a week and a half ago.
Given the warm, calm air this morning, I thought for sure I’d have a new butterfly, moth, dragonfly, damselfly, or bumble bee to show you, but they must all be taking the day off. Oh well. Maybe tomorrow.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 