Signs of Life in Estabrook Park

Happy semiquincentennial eve!

Our recent heat wave continues to wane, but slowly, and the critters in Estabrook Park just keep going about their business as usual.

A great blue heron was looking fierce as it fished in the river just above the falls, and this one appears to be in its second summer with a hint of adult plumage but also the bi-colored bill of a youngster.

There was a trio of killdeer foraging on the exposed river bottom around the upstream island, and this one had the best pensive look.

A new sight for the season was this quintet of northern rough-winged swallows together on a branch over our riverbank, and I believe the second from the right is feeding the third from the right. In all, I counted ten of them in that tree, if only for an instant. I read that they only have one brood per year, with 4-8 eggs, so some in this picture are likely fledglings, and they could even all be from a single nest.

Speaking of fledglings, I suspect this kestrel, perched atop a contraption in the guywire system for one of the towers across the river, has also recently left the nest based on the way it was crying to be fed. I haven’t been able to show you one since the start of May.

Mallard ducklings, on the other hand, are precocial, so they hatch ready to find their own food. All Mom has to do is lead them to it.

Spotted sandpipers are also supposed to be precocial, but I have yet to see a chick, as I did once with killdeer and again just recently with piping plovers, so I don’t know if the ones we see regularly even nest along our stretch of the river. In any case, here’s a mature adult at the far south end striking a very nice pose that doesn’t look pensive at all.

Finally, dragonflies don’t exactly “fledge”, of course, but they do transition from living in the water as larvae to taking flight as adults, and eastern pondhawks are supposed to have done that in mid-June, but here’s the first one of the year that I’ve managed to capture on film.

Lastly, I expect that things will get loud for the next couple of days, and I hope you keep safe if you’re participating in any of that.

A little rain ushers in a heat reprieve…

After a brief rain delay right after sunrise, today turned out to be a pretty nice day. The air was a bit cooler, drier, and even calmer than it’s been for the past couple of days, at least for this morning.

My first treat came at the falls when I checked the exposed rocks in the middle and the far shore for shorebirds. There were a couple of spotted sandpipers, along with a few mallards, but the surprise was finding this turkey checking to see how the new landscaping is holding up during its first summer.

Around the islands farther upstream, I didn’t see much new, but back on shore I did find this beauty, a very fresh-looking painted lady, in the meadow, which remains blissfully unmowed.

On my way back downstream, I heard a second green heron calling to the one I had already spotted fishing below, and it didn’t take me long to find it perched up nice and high against a refreshingly blue sky.

Most everyone else was keeping out of sight, perhaps because their feathers were all still wet from the rain, but by the time I reached the weeds beside the soccer fields, I found our first spot-winged glider of the year all dried out.

We haven’t seen much of the red-tailed hawks lately, perhaps because the gulls are keeping them away, but today I found this one in a decidedly more relaxed pose at the far south end.

Finally, the black raspberries are coming in quickly, and here’s one that needs just about one more day of this sunshine to be ready for eatin’.

The forecast for tomorrow morning looks like a repeat of today, but let’s hope the critters change up their performance a bit.

Beating the heat…

Our heatwave continues, and it was in the double 80s (°F and %RH) at sunrise again, which is not my favorite way to start the day, but there’s plenty of nice shade to be had in Estabrook Park, and we even have water features, so I can’t think of a better place to hide out.

After being absent for a few days, at least one of the green herons was back on the river and fishing around the islands. There were also great blue herons, but I just featured one yesterday, so I left them alone today.

Your flyby of the day was provided by this mature bald eagle coming down the river nice, low, and slow, just the way I like it. I haven’t been able to spot jewelry on an eagle since the winter before last. You might have to click on the image so you can see the original on flickr and zoom in to see it on this one.

I saw the wood duck ducklings again today, but they’re so grown up now that they don’t keep together, and this trio of mallards farther downstream and maintaining a tight formation made a nicer picture.

Finally, for today that is, the American white waterlily has started to blossom on the river, and a pair of damselflies are using it to make like the green darners on Monday.

Since I’ve come up a little short today, here’s another red-bellied woodpecker, a male this time, at another nesting cavity yesterday.

Here’s a male twelve-spotted skimmer, from last Tuesday, with his extra eight white spots nestled between his namesake twelve dark spots.

Lastly, here’s a sulphur butterfly, probably a clouded sulphur, on another one of those firewheel blossoms at the pollinator garden just yesterday.

It appears that today is hump day for the heatwave, as well as the week, and we’re supposed to be back in the mid-70s tomorrow morning, so I can’t wait to see who the reprieve brings out.

June finally delivers some real summer weather…

The heat and humidity that had been promised for days have finally arrived, and it was 80°F and 80% humidity at 6:00 this morning. Jeepers! Given the breathless warnings on the evening news, I expected the weather, but I did not expect to spot this raccoon trotting across the parkway near the pollinator garden. “Sweetie, if I’d known you were going to be there, I would have had my camera set up better. Sorry!”

There was a nice lineup of wood ducks on this log in the pond, and I tried to catch them all looking our way at the same time, but it was like class picture day for kindergarteners.

The mallard hen and her sleepy ducklings on the river were a little better, but not by much.

By the islands in the river, I was surveying the geese, mallards, sandpipers, and killdeer in vain hopes of finding someone new, and I glanced up in time to see a few gulls lazily flying upstream, when I noticed one looked slightly different. By the time I took a look with my binoculars, realized that it was a black-crowned night heron, and tried to prepare my camera for birds in flight, however, the darn thing had gone around the bend and took my chances for a picture with it. My only consolation is that, when this young great blue heron gave me a low pass soon afterwards and and in the other direction, I was all set to go.

Anywho, a couple of squirrels were crying up on the bluff, and sometimes that means they see a hawk, so I hiked up to investigate, but all I could find was this female red-bellied woodpecker with a beakful of breakfast for its nestlings inside that tree trunk.

Farther downstream, as I approached the skate park, I could see a rabbit sprawled out on the pavement, which would have been a fun way to visualize the weather, but before I could line up a picture, this little cutie came scampering up the path and chased the rabbit away. “Okay, Buddy, you know the rules. If you wreck the shot, you become the shot.”

Finally, this is sure not the prettiest butterfly picture I’ve ever taken, especially on top of the cloth put down to kill the grass so the pollinator garden can expand, but it is our first hackberry emperor of the year, and that’s where it like to perch this morning.

Welp, it’s time to wrap this up, and I see the temperature has climbed to 95°F outside, which is supposed to feel like 107°F when you add in the humidity, so I hope you’re staying cool out there.

A morning of unusual sights…

The heat and humidity we’re in for did start to arrive by sunrise this morning, but the critters aren’t taking selfies yet, so I headed out to give them a hand.

My first treat of the day was this mallard hen with a fresh-looking batch of ducklings on the river. This might be her first rodeo because she seemed unsure about what to do after spotting me. Instead of ignoring me or simply easing away, as most mallards do, she paddled in a lazy circle in the middle of the river, and her brood dutifully followed. The bright side, at least for me, is that I had a lot of angles to choose from, but I didn’t want to cause undue stress, so after I realized what was going on, I got out of there so they could resume their regularly scheduled program.

The next treat came on the water around the islands where these youngish-looking great blue herons got into a little altercation. I didn’t see any contact, so perhaps they are nestmates, and this was just a little sibling rivalry.

Then it was time to go collect the wildlife walkers at the beer garden parking lot, and we had a skeleton crew today, perhaps due to the weather, with one at 7am and two more at 8, but it made for a well-focused outing.

As we made our way from the river to the pond, someone noticed a small ruckus above, and it turned out to be a tiny blue-gray gnatcatcher trying to chase away a pair of brown-headed cowbirds. If you thought, as I sure did, that gnatcatchers make nests far too small for cowbirds to parasitize, check out the images Dave Bowman posted of a gnatcatcher feeding a cowbird chick more than twice its size. Wow! No wonder the gnatcatcher was so feisty!

The next big treat of the morning came soon after, when I spotted my very first ruby-throated hummingbird of the year in Estabrook. I was beginning to wonder if I would see any at all, but there he sat, right out in the open for at least 20 seconds.

After visits to the river, the pond, and the river again, one participant ended up logging 34 birds, which is a nice haul for this late in the year. Then we all parted ways, and that’s when this rose-breasted grosbeak knew it was safe to show his face. The little stinker.

Back at the pond, it’s time for common green darners, the “Lords of June“, to start making more, and here’s a pair doing just that. At this point, her eggs are fertilized, and she is in the rear and laying them, while he maintains his grip and is believed to be “prevent[ing] other males from mating with her [in an operation called] “contact guarding”.” Sheesh! Royals can be weird, right?

Finally, here’s one of Wisconsin’s smallest butterflies, a least skipper, sipping nectar from a fleabane blossom, and doing nothing weird at all.

Some birds on the wing…

I can see out our dining room window as I write this, that it has clouded up and started to sprinkle, but the weather was picture-perfect this morning. The sky was clear, if a little hazy, temps were about 10 degrees warmer than they’ve been in weeks, and the air was nearly still.

As I stood looking out over the river at the north end, I noticed that a few cedar waxwings were doing their best swallow impersonation and flying out over the water to catch bugs out of that still air. After enjoying the show for a while, I thought I might try to capture a picture of one, so I set up my camera to do that, and almost as soon as I started watching for an opportunity, look who flew by.

If that “beak” is throwing you off, as it even did to the iNaturalist image recognition algorithm, that’s because the female belted kingfisher is holding her breakfast in it, a good-sized fish she just caught upstream. This is only the third picture I’ve been able to capture of a kingfisher since April, and I’m pretty sure they are not nesting on the upstream island, as they have in previous years, so it’s especially nice when they pay us a visit.

Man, if it wasn’t for the waxwings, I would never have gotten ready in time for that picture. “Thanks, guys!” After that, I did spend a while trying to capture a waxwing image, as well, but they were zigging and zagging like crazy, and this is the best I could manage. The reason the bird appears to be flying out of the frame is because that’s exactly what it was doing, and I couldn’t crop the result any better than this. Oh well, and better luck next time, but they sure are pretty birds anyway. Right?

Later, as I was making my way back downstream, I heard the familiar call of an osprey, which are always a treat to see, so I hurried back to the islands to see if I could catch a glimpse, and this is the glimpse I could catch. It had just tried for a fish, a sight that my autofocus failed to track, came up empty, and was climbing back up to try once more.

Then I headed downstream again, and when I got to the other wide and slow part of the river, down the bluff from the middle playground, I spotted this muskrat steaming right towards me. Right after I got this picture, it turned towards shore and disappeared behind grass and other plants growing on the riverbank.

When I tried to sneak up on it to see if I could get a better picture, I found it busily mowing down the forget-me-nots growing there, which I had no luck capturing, and then it hopped right back into the water with a mouthful. That bouquet might seem sweet and all, but remember, those are for food.

Finally, the weeds, both native and invasive, are coming up nicely in the meadow beside the river at the north end, and I spotted at least seven species of butterflies there today, but my favorite has to be this question mark, named for the two small white marks on its hindwing, and which we haven’t gotten to see since 2024! “Hello, stranger!”

Here’s the other side of its wings. I read that they hibernate or migrate to survive the Wisconsin winter, and this one sure doesn’t look like this is its first summer. A related bit of good news is that I’ve recently gotten word from the Parks Department that “the Unit Coordinator for Estabrook likes the idea [of not mowing there],” so maybe we’ll get to enjoy the critters it attracts for a while longer. Yay, and keep all your fingers crossed on that one!

I see temps will still be mild, at about 70°F at 7am tomorrow, the rain should be done, and the breeze should be light, but the humidity is expected to be 91%. So, conditions will be just fine for our weekly wildlife walk, but dress comfortably, and bring some insect repellent. The mosquitos will be thirsty! If 7am’s not your thing, I’ll come by the parking lot again at 8 to collect you.

Yet another special guest shows up…

It was one more in a long string of gorgeous mornings in Estabrook Park, and I eagerly searched for the screech-owl from yesterday, but that appearance seems to have been a one-and-done. Oh well. I sure was thrilled to see it, even if for only one day.

Instead, our special guest for today is this dapper green-winged teal drake, dabbling amongst the mallards in the low water between the islands. He even gave us a good look at his namesake green wing. We did see one already this year, back in April, but I’ve only recorded 8 sightings in Estabrook, compared to 24 for screech-owls. So there.

Meanwhile, the deer in the river keep multiplying, and I don’t mean in the sense of our new fawn. I mean that there were two more bucks, besides the three amigos, and another doe, in addition to the fawn’s mom, for a total of seven adults in the water today. Interestingly, the bucks all seemed to get along just fine, and it was the does that ended up chasing each other around. My guess is that it was the fawn’s mom who took issue with another doe sniffing too close to her fawn. Anyway, I had the wrong lens for capturing any of that action, I’m sorry to say, so here’s a portrait of one of the new bucks who gave me a break and stood nice and still for a moment.

That was the excitement on the river for this morning, so I started to head back home, and on my way, this crow gave me a pose that I just couldn’t resist.

I didn’t see any new dragonflies or butterflies in the weeds beside the soccer fields today, but this eastern tailed-blue, which we just saw last week, gave us a rare peek at the in/top/dorsal side of those pretty wings it has.

There’s a musk thistle in blossom at the south end of the weed patch, and I was lining up a nice picture of a male goldfinch on it, when this female arrived and shooed him away, as if to say “you had your chance yesterday, and it’s my turn now!”

Despite the goldfinch’s efforts, I’m a little short on pictures this time, so here’s another look at the fawn, when Mom had it out on the river Thursday.

Finally, here’s one more pose from the fabulous photoshoot the common yellowthroat granted me also on Thursday.

It looks like we’re in for one more pretty nice day tomorrow, if a bit more humid, before the hot and muggy weather arrives, and I can’t wait to see who shows up next!

A nice blast from the past…

Despite the forecast, the sun hardly showed its face at all in Estabrook this morning. It was cool, calm, and dry, however, so it was still a pretty good time to look for wildlife.

This first picture is quite dark, because I took it at 5:15 am, and the streetlights might have still been on, but if you look closely, you’ll see a pair of eyes staring right back at you. In case you don’t recognize them, they belong to the first screech-owl we’ve seen in the park in a long time, and if it weren’t for the robins loudly urging it to find a different tree, we probably wouldn’t have seen it at all. “Thanks, guys! And welcome back, Sweetie!”

The next big surprise was finding the three amigos again, and this time they were in the river just upstream of where the falls used to be. I took this picture from the boardwalk.

By then a small gap had opened in the clouds, and it let the sun light up this great blue heron perched over the far riverbank quite nicely. The gap closed right back up soon after that.

I saw most of the usual suspects around the islands at the north end, including the fawn and its mom, but the next sight that I thought might make a nice picture for today’s post was this young-looking rabbit right beside the paved path as I made my way back south.

The common yellowthroat was still singing in his usual spot, but he kept out of sight this morning, so we’ll just have to make do with this green heron perched over the far riverbank near the abandoned bridge abutments.

There were plenty of ducklings around, but they were all moving too quickly for the light I had to work with, so here’s a batch of teenagers from yesterday morning when conditions were more favorable. And lest you worry, Mom was just out of the frame to the left, and keeping close tabs on things.

Finally, it was too cool for most bugs to be active, so I didn’t see much in the way of butterflies or dragonflies, but as I made my way across the southern parking lot, this male goldfinch rose to the moment and provided a nice dash of color to wrap things up for us. “Thanks, Buddy!”

The forecast for tomorrow looks quite similar to today’s, but from what I hear, we’d better enjoy the cool air while it lasts because it’s not supposed to last for much longer.

The sun did come out, but I highly doubt that it dried up all the rain…

That rain, which we enjoyed for much of yesterday, was gone by sunrise, but it failed to take all the clouds with it, so we had a nice enough morning in Estabrook Park, while the sun dipped out for a bit every now and then.

Young mallard ducklings keep emerging from the woods, if not exactly the woodwork, and here’s a sextet sticking close to Mom on the river just below the falls.

As I was working on the duckling picture, a great blue heron landed on the low island of bedrock, where the falls used to be, and started looking for a good spot to catch some fish.

At the north end, the doe and her fawn waded from the mainland back to their island, just as I arrived, and then the fawn got a good licking.

Back at the beer garden, the common yellowthroat I’ve been hearing there for weeks finally showed its little masked face. Perhaps because it had heard about the showoff at Retzer.

Even better, after deciding that the coast was clear enough, it broke out in song.

Meanwhile, the gravel right below is now covered in dropped mulberries, and this chipmunk, which would normally be pretty shy, appeared to be so enthralled by the taste that I wondered if it would let me scratch behind those tiny ears. I thought better of that crazy idea, however, and just took a picture instead.

Finally, our old pals, the bicolored striped sweat bees, are back, and here’s one on a firewheel (Gaillardia pulchella) blossom in the pollinator garden.

I see that the sun is supposed to be even scarcer tomorrow, so I can’t make any promises, but I’ll do what I can.

Time again for some “deep cuts”…

It’s a rainy morning in Estabrook Park, Campers, and you know what that means. That’s right, it’s time to hit the arts and crafts pavilion, and pity the fools who signed up for waterfront today.

Anyway, before we head over, there was a short gap in the precipitation soon after sunrise, and I snuck out to capture this image of my very first beautiful wood nymph (Eudryas grata), which, despite the glamorous name, is a moth “known for their mimicry of bird droppings.” Long, long-time readers may remember that I found a red-spotted purple chrysalis, back in the day, which also mimicked bird droppings. That’s cool and all, and I hope it works well for them, but I sure am glad that bird droppings are not the only things that bugs mimic. Right?

Now, about that arts and crafts pavilion. If you had your hopes set on stitching up a pair of leather moccasins or braiding up a lanyard, I have some bad news for you. I was just using it as a euphemism for diving into the archives to see some old travel pictures that I haven’t managed to show you yet. Sorry!

Anyway, here’s one of several Cape ground squirrels or South African ground squirrels (Geosciurus inauris) that we saw in Etosha National Park. “Don’t worry, Sweetie, we’re not coming for your burrow.”

I have already shown you a pale chanting-goshawk, from the drive back to Windhoek, and here’s another one, a youngster who greeted us at the start of our second day in Etosha.

I showed you the sociable weavers in Etosha and their massive nests already, but they were not the only weaver birds there, and here’s a scaly-feathered weaver, scaly-feathered finch, or just scaly weaver (Sporopipes squamifrons). They weave little individual nests into a bush and are sociable enough to have several nests in a single bush, but they don’t go crazy and weave them all into one big monster.

You may be stunned to learn, as I was, that “canary” isn’t a species of bird, but that there are 37 species in the genus that includes “yellow canary”, and this black-throated canary or black-throated seedeater (Crithagra atrogularis), foraging in the landscaping around the visitors’ center at Etosha, is also one of them. You can just see a tiny patch of yellow peeking out from under its wingtip.

Besides the flamingos that we saw at the ocean in Walvis Bay , we also saw this quartet of greater crested terns, crested terns, swift terns, or great crested terns, (Thalasseus bergii) taking a break on the sand to rest and preen.

Finally, on our drive to the airport to catch a hop back to Johannesburg, we spotted a small troop of chacma baboons or Cape baboons (Papio ursinus) on a utility pole, and when we stopped for pictures, they were kind enough to climb down to pose on this fence. That doesn’t look like a very comfortable seat, but what do I know?

Lastly, I see that we are forecast to resume our regularly scheduled program tomorrow of cool temps, a light breeze, and partly cloudy skies, so keep your fingers crossed that I can rustle up some shiny new content for you.