Signs of Life in Estabrook Park
A look at the wildlife living in, on, and beside the Milwaukee River in Shorewood, WI
and all through the park, barely a creature was stirring, barely even this mourning dove. I know, I know, and I’d love to even see, let alone photograph for you, a live mouse in Estabrook Park, stirring or not, but I haven’t so far, and I’m not holding my breath. Instead, I haven’t shown you a morning dove yet this month, so here you go.
The sky is starting to haze up a bit now, but it was a beautiful morning in Estabrook Park, with mild temps again, still air, and clear skies for a while.
The first pretty sight I found taking full advantage of the golden sunlight was this common merganser hen up on the ice above the falls to preen with the mallards.
I’ve been seeing two or three crows near the upstream island lately, and this pair appeared to be having a tender moment today.
A mature bald eagle was perched high over the far riverbank again, but it was alone this time.
I didn’t see any other odd ducks on the river, and I did see a Cooper’s hawk at the pond, but it gave me the slip this time. Plus, there was nobody else new or especially photogenic there, despite the beautiful day, so I started heading home.
On my way, I stopped by the southern soccer fields, where I had seen the winter wren yesterday, in hopes that it might let me have a nicer picture today, and I did get a glimpse, but before I could bring my camera to bear, look who showed up instead to chase it away. . I’ve been hearing this character near the same location for much of the fall, and birds of the same species every once in a while for years, but this is the first time one let me sneak a picture here.
Please give a warm Estabrook welcome to the very first Carolina wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus) I’ve ever managed to capture on film in all of Wisconsin, let alone Milwaukee County. I see now that their natural range doesn’t quite extend into the state, which could explain my difficulty.
It only gave me one try, and it’s not quite the portrait I was granted in Connecticut, but it sure is good enough for a positive ID, and it makes the 5th wren species we’ve seen in Estabrook. Hallelujah!
Wow! It sure is a very gray day in Estabrook Park, but the good news, at least for folks who have been less than thrilled with the recent winter weather, is that the temps are mild, the breeze is very light, and there has been hardly any precipitation at all. Even better, three folks turned up for this morning’s wildlife walk. Yay! It was nice to catch up.
Our first treat came at the pond when we spotted the only fox sparrow I’ve seen since the winter weather got a nice jump start back at the beginning of December.
Next, a small flock of American tree sparrows swooped down onto the lawn. They haven’t been quite as scarce, but are still always a pleasure to see.
And there were a few white-throated sparrows, as usual, to round out our native sparrow trifecta.
As we started to make our way toward the river, I heard the call a of Cooper’s hawk, and it was pretty high and deep into the woods, but we found it eventually, and here it is. The way the brown of its face seems to bleed onto the top of its white breast makes it look more like the one we saw on Friday, than the one we saw on Wednesday, which would suggest that we’ve got a couple of youngsters coming to the pond to hunt, woo hoo, but I could be mistaken.
When we did finally reach the river, Kathy quickly spotted this bald eagle on the ice for us. Its feathers look wet, and it kept reaching its beak down to the ice or water, but we couldn’t really tell what it was doing. In any case, I was surprised by how long it lingered there after it had spotted us.
Perhaps the reason for its ease was that it had a companion keeping watch from a tree overhead. The one on the ice did eventually fly up into the trees as well, but they didn’t perch together so it was difficult to judge relative size, and I don’t know which was the male and which was the female. Either way, it sure was cool to see the pair again, even if they didn’t serenade us this time.
Finally, folks had to get on with their day, so we parted ways, and I headed back home, but look who I saw along the way: this darling winter wren.
The current forecast calls for tomorrow morning to be a repeat of today’s, so here’s hoping I see as many birds again.
Our recent winter weather roller coaster, at least temperature wise, continued with a plunge back into the teens overnight after soaring into the balmy low forties yesterday afternoon. I arrived at Lakeshore State Park just after sunrise but in time to greet the few solstice revelers who had braved the cold to mark the occasion from front-row seats.
The lagoon isn’t quite completely frozen over yet, and one of the small patches of open water is still attracting goldeneyes, and here’s a drake bathed in the sun’s warm morning glow.
Same for this hen.
As the Milwaukee Birders began to congregate at the south entrance, Helen was the first to notice a pair of kestrels perched high above us on the lights hung from the back side of the American Family Insurance Amphitheater, and she pointed out that they were even posing nicely for me, which they sure were. Here’s the female, and “Thanks, Helen!”
As we circled the park, we found that the American tree sparrows had retired from their usual spot in the tall grass to the willow tree growing out of the riprap at the water’s edge.
As I was busy trying to get a decent picture of a sparrow in backlight, the rest of the group had moved on a bit and were chatting with a gentleman who had a camera with him that could eat mine for a snack. By happy coincidence, it turns out that he had just seen a pair of long-tailed ducks (Clangula hyemalis), and after a brief search, we spotted them, too. They were both females in non-breeding plumage, which isn’t quite as flashy as a drake’s, but that’s still a completely new bird for me, so Yee Haw!
Finally, as we recongregated back at the south entrance to wrap things up, it seemed that the male kestrel was unhappy with the photo I had managed of him earlier, so he posed again and against the beautiful blue sky this time. “Thanks, Buddy! I hope you like this one.”
Lastly, the forecast calls for a warmup tomorrow morning, with temps in the low thirties, clouds, and a bit of a breeze out of the south, so not bad for the second half of December in Wisconsin. Based on recent outings, however, I can make no predictions about what we might see on our weekly wildlife walk, so if you want to be among the first to know, come on out and join us.
The skies have cleared up now, but they were pretty dark and cloudy this morning in Estabrook Park. The good news is that the clouds hardly leaked at all, and they rode into town on a warming trend, so it’s 40° now, and it was just below freezing at sunrise.
Things got off to a pretty good start on my walk when I spotted this cutie ambling down the river path ahead of me. It soon tucked into the brush beside the path, and I feared that I might have missed my chance for a picture, but then it climbed into this fork and couldn’t have posed for a nicer image if we had rehearsed it. You may have seen that a raccoon made the news recently, but I’m pretty sure this is a different one.
Farther upstream, I heard a little scamper through the now-exposed leaves on the ground beside the path, and as I looked for the source, it popped its little head out of a hole in the side of a hollow log. As I reached for my camera, it ducked back inside, of course, but I wasn’t in a rush, so I waited a bit, and sure enough, it took another look to see if I was gone.
And then my luck ran out. Oh, I did see 24 bird species for the Estabrook contribution to the Christmas Bird Count, so it wasn’t a total loss, and I did take some lousy shots of the American black duck on the far side of the river and a Cooper’s hawk over the far riverbank, but the distance combined with the low light makes them pretty lackluster, even by my standards, so I’ll spare you.
I see that the Milwaukee Birders are heading back down to Lakeshore State Park tomorrow morning, and the sun is supposed to be out, so I’ll give that a try and see if there aren’t some interesting ducks in the lagoon down there. I’ll keep you posted.
After taking a couple of days off, winter came roaring back with a vengeance overnight, and temps were back into the low teens by morning. On top of that, the wind was forecast to be 24 mph at sunrise, so the windchill was below zero. Yikes! At least the sun was out, so if I took a picture, it stood a chance of being pretty.
I did see a pair of common mergansers and a black duck amongst the mallards on the river, but it was too early for any of them to be soaking up any sun. Instead, the show really began at the pond today, and the first performer was this black-capped chickadee foraging on the sumac bushes. I tried to capture it up on the red bunches of seeds, but it gave us the best pose down here at eye-level.
The woodpeckers sometimes take a while to warm up, so I wasn’t expecting to see many today, but perhaps they are coasting on yesterday’s warmth, because they seemed plentiful this morning. Here’s a female downy.
And here’s a male nearby who appears to have just found a tiny morsel.
Of the woodpeckers that are regulars in Estabrook, red-bellies (not red-breasted as I mistakenly wrote a few days ago) are usually the last to start making noise on a cold morning, but here’s one up and at’em already.
Hairys, on the other hand, are often the first ones I hear these days, but they tend to be harder to put eyes on, so I was happy to catch this male to round out my trifecta.
Then, just as I had lined myself up to capture some white-throated sparrow pictures, this young Cooper’s hawk flew in, and all the little birds made themselves scarce.
The hawk even made a feeble attempt at some house finches below, and I don’t know if it was suffering from youthful inexperience or lack of real hunger, but the finches easily gave it the slip.
And that was the end of the show for today. I see we’re due for another warm-up, but not until tomorrow afternoon, so the trails should still be nice and firm for tomorrow’s annual Christmas Bird Count. It sure would be nice if a bald eagle or a great horned owl would put in an appearance, I’m just sayin’.
The December thaw continues to deepen this morning in Estabrook Park, and the air is full of moisture, either falling from the thick cloud cover above, or rising off the snow below into the warm air, so it’s not a great morning for taking pictures. Instead, let me show you some from a little field trip I got to take yesterday afternoon.
It turns out that there is a state wildlife area called “Killsnake” about 70 miles north of here near Chilton, WI. “The property is approximately 7,000 acres and consists of a variety of open prairie grasslands, both upland and a large wetland-grassland complex, bottomland hardwood forest, a small area of cedar swamp, tamarack and bog,” and it also turns out that short-eared owls (Asio flammeus) appear to love it in the winter time.
They have been spotted in Estabrook at least one time before, but that was back in 2023, and no one has reported seeing one there since. So, John, who has often led our weekly wildlife walks when I’ve been out of town, suggested we drive up to Killsnake to see them, and conditions looked favorable yesterday afternoon, with seasonably mild temps, a light breeze, and clear skies. Dennis, who has joined us on many walks, was kind enough to drive and got us there right at 3pm.
At that point, there were no owls, nor any other birds to be seen, but there were 40 (that’s right, forty!) cars parked along the edge of the roads at a T-junction in the middle of a huge field. Given the number of cars, I believe it is safe to guess that there were 40-60 people standing around, and the camera equipment they had brought with them was worthy of an NFL football game, except that much of it was wrapped in camo weather protection. These folks were serious.
We all just stood around and made chit-chat while scanning the skies periodically until right around 3:20. That’s when a single owl casually flew in and perched on a handy clump of driftwood that someone had placed just 30 feet from the road. Then the only sound I heard was the beeps confirming focus lock and the click, clack, clunk of shutters opening and closing.
If you had some video of the event and told me that it was a performance by a tamed and trained owl in front of a crowd of paying customers, I’d believe you. The crowd was very well behaved, nobody stepped off the road, nobody ran, voices were muted, but I can still hardly believe how undisturbed the owl appeared. As I mentioned it was a huge field, there were plenty of other perches, but it plopped down right in front of us. On top of that, the lighting was perfect, and the background was gorgeous. A commercial operation would be hard pressed to equal the setting or the performer.
The owl did fly around a bit and checked out some other perches, and I did try my hardest to capture it in flight, but this was the best I could come up with. Dennis, on the other hand, has some stunning shots, which you can see on his flickr page.
The owl even caught a small mammal, and you can just see the tip of its tail hanging down below the driftwood perch in bottom of this picture. I heard people murmur about seeing owls gulping down their dinner in the past, but yesterday it hopped to the ground behind the driftwood, instead, to eat in a bit of privacy.
Before the sun dipped below the horizon, at 4:16, the owl gave us a couple more poses, and then it started its evening hunt in earnest. My equipment really doesn’t capture enough light for that, so I was free just to watch it go. What an absolutely marvelous sight.
Soon after that, the temperature really started to drop, everyone started packing up to head home, and we did the same. Thanks again to John and Dennis for providing me with the opportunity to witness such a magical sight.
Finally, I see that winter is schedule to resume tomorrow, at least for a day, so I’ll be back in Estabrook to see what’s new, and I’ll be sure to let you know.
Lastly, if you’re new to this project (thanks for joining us!) or have otherwise missed my explanation for the double images, you can read all about it here: https://signsoflifeinestabrookpark.net/images/
I love a cold and snowy winter as much as the next guy, maybe even more. Why else would I live in Wisconsin, right? Nevertheless, I sure did enjoy a morning in Estabrook Park with temps above freezing, nearly still air, and a warm sun. It would appear that the critters did, too.
I’ve been waiting for this first sight since ice first started forming on the river, and today was the day I finally got to see a beaver up on that ice. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of one since July. They have been leaving signs, for sure, but nothing beats seeing one in the flesh.
Even better, this one gave us a bit of a show as it stood up on its haunches to look down river. I can’t tell if it was looking for a mate, food, or a predator, and it wouldn’t say.
Farther upstream, the winter wren was out again, and this time it let me sneak a nicer picture.
Back out on the river, another furry critter was up on the ice, a muskrat this time, and it was on a mission.
Here’s a short video of it hustling along.
Finally, this immature Cooper’s hawk was leaving the pond to the adults and perusing the menu at the meadow by the islands instead.
That’s all I’ve got for you today, and if you venture out to look for yourself, let me warn you that conditions were slipperier this morning than any day this month. After the warm up yesterday, it was cool and clear enough overnight for radiant cooling to freeze everything back up by sunrise, and I suspect the frozen ground is acting like the refrigeration system under a skating rink, so the river trail was more like a ribbon of ice than ever. The paved paths weren’t much better. Things may change as the day continues to warm, but be careful out there!
It was a very nice morning in Estabrook Park, with temps in the positive teens, for the first time in a while, a light breeze, and mostly clear skies. The critters, however, were making themselves scarce for some reason that I don’t really know. Perhaps they were all just too busy making up for lost time to pose for any pictures today.
This image of an eastern cotton tail on the island in the pond was the best I could do.
The good news is that I had plenty of time to take advantage of the mild temps and thick ice to collect the two wood duck nesting boxes that had fallen from the trees on which they had been installed. They appear to be in pretty good shape, but I’ll give them a good checking out once the snow melts off of them, and then mount them back where they belong when conditions permit again. With any luck, that will get us wood duck ducklings on the pond again this summer.
It is supposed to break 32°F soon and stay above freezing into tomorrow morning, so it will be fascinating to see what the river trails are like then. Perhaps the critters will have gotten all caught up on their calorie intake by then, too, and I’ll be able to get a few more pictures for you. Keep your fingers crossed!
We had two folks join the weekly wildlife walk this morning, despite the cold, which is a 100% increase over the previous two weeks. Woo hoo! What we didn’t have, however, was critters posing for pictures. The most notable sighting was probably the young bald eagle, whom we saw gliding over the river several times, but we never saw it land.
The next most interesting sight was probably this American black duck drake. He has a light, yellow bill, instead of the dark, olive bill of the hen we saw last week. Thankfully, by the time we spotted the duck, near the end of our walk, the sun had finally found a hole in the cloud deck and lit up the scene wonderfully. That’s a mallard drake snoozing right behind him, and a mallard hen preening behind the mallard drake, for those of you keeping score at home.
And that’s the whole show for today, I’m sorry to say. I see that we’re in for a warm-up over the coming days, so maybe that will shake things up a bit, and I’ll find something new to show you soon. Wish me luck!
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park