Author Archives: Andrew Dressel

The air was cool and still enough this morning for a little “evaporation fog” to form over the relatively warm soccer fields. It might be a sign of things to come. Anyway, I was happy to find a bit more critter activity in the park today. I’ve been skipping my first visit to the pondContinue reading “Quite the rebound!”

Beautiful weather has returned to Estabrook Park, and I hoped I’d have a great morning of picture taking, but perhaps we’re entering a period of doldrums before the fall migration. One exception was this little eastern wood-pewee hunting from the same chain at the north end as Monday, but today it let me get aContinue reading “A nice and slow summer day…”

First, a correction. Karen Wesener wrote in response to yesterday’s post that “butterflies emerge from a chrysalis, not a cocoon. Cocoons are for moths.” In other news, my entire fact checking team chose a terrible week to go on vacation and left me here by myself to make up stuff willy-nilly. Anyway, it was aContinue reading “A soaker but not a washout…”

After all the surprises of yesterday’s air and water show, it seems the critters were taking a break today. Plus, it was quite cloudy this morning, so a good time to sleep in. I did get to see a belted kingfisher over the river, and this one is a male, for a change. At theContinue reading “More firsts even on a sleepy Monday”

We’re back from camping at Kohler-Andrae, and it was a perfect morning to get back into Estabrook Park. My first pleasant surprise of the day was finding this young or female hooded merganser floating amongst the wood ducks and mallards on the pond. We haven’t seen one since early July when one hung out onContinue reading “A morning of many surprises…”

I expect this to be my last morning at Kohler-Andrae, and I opted to give the Black River Marsh another try. Oddly enough, I managed few photographs even though I saw more bird species than last time. So it goes. I was happy to see the pelicans again, and this time they flew right overContinue reading “Kohler-Andrae 2024, Day 3”

As the title suggests, I’m back at Kohler-Andrae State Park, and this morning I gave the Black River Marsh a rest and gave the Kohler Park Dunes State Natural Area a try. It did not disappoint! I hadn’t even gotten out of the parking lot when I came across a rafter of wild turkeys withContinue reading “Kohler-Andrae 2024, Day 2”

There were still some gaps in the cloud cover when the sun came over the horizon in Estabrook Park this morning, but temps were in the mid-70s already, and the humidity percentage was in the mid-80s, so everything was already pretty wet. I met this mourning dove on my way around the southern soccer fields,Continue reading “August gets off to a soggy start…”

A visit to Kohler-Andrae State Park is always a treat, but I’ve got some things to take care of at home today, so I’m back in Shorewood, and I figured I might as well check on the critters in Estabrook Park while I’m here. The pond was hoppin’ this morning with over a dozen mallards,Continue reading “Goodbye, July!”

I’m at Kohler-Andrae State Park today, and I got to see some amazing sights this morning, but I’m at the Sheboygan public library right now to use their wifi, and I’m supposed to bring back lunch for Anne, so I gotta hurry. There might be some typos. Before I even left the campground, and whileContinue reading “Kohler-Andrae 2024, Day 1!”