Estabrook Park was cool, cloudy, and quiet this morning. The first two are simply weather conditions, of course, and quite welcome after the week we’ve had, but the third is perhaps due to folks celebrating our 250th anniversary a lot harder that I thought they would.
Mom ventured out soon after, and she spotted me right away, but seemed comfortable with the distance I was at. “Don’t worry, Sweetie. I’ll be cool.”
The fawn seemed oblivious, or simply couldn’t help itself, and proceeded to scamper around on the exposed river bottom.
After a bit, the youngster appeared to ask Mom if she wanted to join in the fun, …
and it turned out she was game. Excellent!
She seemed to really get into it, too.
Then the fawn seemed beside itself with glee and raced around for a bit more on its own.
Good job, Mom.
Oh, before I forget, I won’t be able to make the wildlife walk tomorrow morning, but please don’t let my absence stop you from getting out to take a look for yourself. I’ll be back for next Monday.
The first fun surprise today was finding a quartet of least sandpipers on the exposed river bottom around the upstream island. We haven’t seen them since last spring, and they must have been quite hungry because they were hustling around much more than the spotted sandpipers or killdeer usually do. Luckily, I was able to catch this one standing still for a moment.
I didn’t see a single goose yesterday, so I was glad to find this nice gaggle on my way back downstream today, but I was even gladder to spot a few wood duck ducklings trying to take a nap right in the middle of them. If you don’t see them, look closer. They’re right in the middle of the picture.
Finally, if I had to guess, the first brood of monarch butterflies that hatched in Wisconsin this year is just now emerging from their chrysalises because, after I have failed to capture a single one on film yet this year, there were suddenly three shiny, new individuals leisurely sipping nectar from the thistle blossoms beside the southern soccer fields. At last!
I see that the heat wave must really be over, at least in Estabrook Park, because it’s supposed to be in the 60s tomorrow morning and then only in the 70s later in the day, and I can’t wait to see who that brings out.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!”
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!
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.
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.
