Signs of Life in Estabrook Park

Cedarburg Bog!

I had the extreme good fortune this morning of joining the Milwaukee Birders for their visit to the Cedarburg Bog, “one of the largest and most diverse wetlands in southern Wisconsin“, which I was stunned to learn is actually in Saukville, not Cedarburg, and is technically a fen, not a bog. Happily, the critters don’t seem to mind these mislabelings.

The first such critter, who seemed perfectly content there, was this ruby-throated hummingbird keeping her eggs warm on a branch just off the trail. Long-time readers may recall that we had a similar nest in Estabrook just last year, but this is the first hummingbird I’ve seen all summer, so I’m especially thrilled to see one again.

This next critter is a surprise even to the fine folks at ebird. It’s a brown creeper, in case you can’t tell from my artfully dark and grainy “photograph”, bringing food to its nest under that loose bark to which it is clinging, and it is considered “rare” for this location on this date. How fun!

As I understand it, a visit to Cedarburg Bog isn’t complete without seeing a carnivorous plant, and here’s a healthy-looking specimen of the Purple Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia purpurea).

As luck would have it, they are currently in blossom, and here’s one of the intricate beauties, which have evolved to be “pollinated by bumble bees, honey bees, and Pitcher plant flies.”

As amazing as the pitcher plant is, it isn’t even the only carnivorous plant there, and here’s a Round-leaved Sundew (Drosera rotundifolia) that is not nearly as in focus as I thought it was. Oops!

There is also a carnivorous bladderwort growing in the water there, but I couldn’t make a picture of that look pretty, so here’s a striking carnivorous insect, instead, a female twelve-spotted dragonfly, and our first such of the year.

Finally, the weather was very pleasant this morning, so there were several butterflies flitting about, and here’s the one that let me capture the nicest image, our first red-spotted purple of the year.

Lastly, back at Estabrook Park, the weather is forecast to be a little cooler, a little breezier, and a lot cloudier tomorrow morning than we’ve been enjoying lately, but after seeing our first dunlins and our first semipalmated plover just this past week, I hope you’re as excited for our weekly wildlife walk as I am. We also took advantage of the low water and hauled that nasty broken canoe, a shopping cart, one more tire, and a bunch of other junk, which recent floods have left for us, out of the river between the islands yesterday so the viewing should be better than ever. I’ll look for you at the beer garden parking lot at 7am and again at 8am.

The river delivers again…

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.

A return to saner weather, we can hope…

After the wettest April on record in Milwaukee, followed immediately by the driest May on record, everyone around here is wondering what June is gonna do, and I am happy to report that after a few dry days, we’re having a nice rainy morning. Let’s hope it doesn’t get carried away in either direction and instead reverts to the norm.

Anyway, it wasn’t raining already at sunrise, but the cloud cover was already thick, so I got into Estabrook Park a little later than usual lately, and the guy who runs his German shepherd loose on the soccer fields, a double no-no in Milwaukee County Parks, was already at it, so I headed straight down to the river for a change. My reward for the detour was coming across our first mallard ducklings for the year, and here are six of the seven little foragers getting right to work under Mom’s watchful eyes. Woo hoo!

After that stop at the river, I hiked back up onto the bluff to continue north, and the next surprise of the morning was this masterpiece of survival digging a hole for her eggs right beside the paved path. That would seem like not the greatest location, but I’ve learned my lesson from previous attempts to suggest someplace else, and I left her to it.

Just a bit farther up the paved path I spotted our first damselfly of the year, this handsome American rubyspot.

I made it all the way to the pond before the rain started, but then the radar did not look promising, so I hightailed it back home. Thus, I’ve got room for a few more pictures, and here’s a blue jay wondering “will the kid eat that?”, which is silly, of course, because anyone who’s seen birds feed their kids knows that the kids will eat literally anything.

I had such a nice session with the dunlins yesterday that here’s another picture of their tight formation flying that came out pretty nice.

I found my first real bumble bee of the season, and it turns out to be an improbably named Lemon Cuckoo Bumble Bee (Bombus citrinus). The “lemon” part of the name is “due to its lemon-yellow color,” simply enough, but the “cuckoo” part is because it “invades the colonies of other bumble bees, kills the resident queen, and takes control over the population of workers inside.” Yikes! That’s a little more drama than I was expecting!

On a lighter note, the dame’s rockets blossoming beside the soccer fields also attract black swallowtails, and here’s one from Wednesday, when I showed you the clearwing moth instead.

I see that we’re due for showers overnight, but they should clear out by tomorrow morning, so here’s hoping that pans out and I get more time to collect pictures for you.

Be still my heart!

Since I’ve started to sound like a broken record, I’ll spare you the weather report and get right to the action. Just as soon as I could see the soccer fields at the south end, and while it was still pretty dark out, I was stunned to find a couple of coyotes and a white-tailed doe appearing for all the world to be playing chase. Even though, or perhaps because it was outnumbered, the deer was chasing the coyotes about as much as they chased it back.

I read that coyotes can and will take down an adult deer if the winter is harsh or the deer is sick or injured, but neither was the situation here. Another possibility is that she has a fawn stashed somewhere and was distracting the coyotes to protect it. In any case, I never saw any contact between them, the coyotes gave up after a few minutes, and everyone retired to the cover of nearby woods. Phew! That sure was a first for me!

At the pond, the wood duck ducklings remain in hiding, or so we hope, and the main attraction was this green heron fishing from the island.

As I headed down the stairway to the river from the beer garden, this red squirrel had a look on its face which seemed to ask, “remember when you were that excited to get a picture of me?” I replied, of course, “don’t worry sweetheart, I still love taking your picture.” So, here we are.

Not to offend the red squirrels, or any other regular cuties, but the huge news of the morning was the arrival of this small flock of dunlins. Long-time readers may recall that I’ve seen them before, but never in Estabrook, until now.

Here they are settling into the buffet. When I realized that the change made to the falls, which allows native fish upriver to spawn, was about equivalent to removing a low dam, I had a hope that more exposed river bottom would attract more shorebirds, and this is exactly my dream coming true.

They must have been hungry because they really kept moving, but here’s a near portrait that one let me sneak.

Finally, it was a little warmer today than it’s been recently, so the insects were active by the time I was on my way home, and here’s our first Peck’s skipper butterfly of the year. It’s on invasive dame’s rocket blossoms, which I know ain’t great, but at least they’re pretty, and they provide some nectar to the pollinators, even if it’s not their ideal diet.

Lastly, Friends of Estabrook is working on converting that patch of weeds along the west edge of the southern soccer fields, where I took the picture above, into a “rain garden of native plants”, and they are looking for volunteers to help out on that project and the expansion of the existing pollinator garden closer to the middle parking lot. Specifically:

“Help is needed on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8-10 am, starting on June 9th. The first few weeks we will be watering the new plants, pulling weeds and transplanting native plants. We will also be putting mulch in the garden to suppress weeds and create paths. Then we will get the rain garden ready for seeding and planting in the Fall. We will meet at the pollinator garden. If you have native plants to donate, bring them along. Questions? Email Henry at htomasiewicz at gmail dot com“

Not who I expected to see…

It has mostly clouded up by now, lunch time, but the skies were pretty clear, and the wind was calm again in Estabrook Park earlier today, so it was another in a nice string of gorgeous mornings. The critters seemed to be continuing their boycott, and I was composing a long list of excuses in my head, until I started making my way home from the pond.

The one picture I did manage to get before then was of this white-breasted nuthatch showing off a breakfast morsel before flitting to its nesting cavity nearby. Sweetpea’s got mouths to feed.

There is still no sign of the dozen ducklings we saw on the pond Monday, but I was relieved to find the five on the river back in action after a few days out of sight, and here are a couple of the little adorables with their mom.

The youngsters are a little hungrier, bolder, oblivious, or some combinations of the above, and they came closer than Mom dared.

At the southern soccer fields, the kingbirds had moved on, and this olive-sided flycatcher had taken their place, although it kept to a much higher perch.

As I was working on the flycatcher picture above, I started to hear a familiar but unexpected call, and I was thrilled that I was able to get eyes on the singer, this astounding male scarlet tanager. I had figured that they’d all flown north already, but I was clearly mistaken. It’s a long way from South America after all.

Even better, he wasn’t alone, and here’s a female who looks quite interested in his song.

Finally, as I made my way across the fields to exit the park, I spotted another surprise, this snowberry clearwing moth. I read that they hibernate as pupae, so this one should have recently emerged, despite its rough appearance, and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen one before the bee balm blossoms in mid-July.

So, stragglers are still heading north, while some frontrunners appear to be a month ahead of schedule, and the most likely explanation is that there are always stragglers and frontrunners, but I just don’t often see them both on the same day. Tune in tomorrow to see what surprises I stumble upon next.

Trying to fill a gorgeous setting…

It was about as nice a morning in Estabrook Park as I could ask for, weather wise, with mild temps, still air, and clear skies, but the critters and I seem to be still adjusting to the new, post-migration, normal, because I really struggled to come up with pictures to reflect the pretty day.

One bright spot was this osprey, who put on an impressive show over the river just upstream of the two islands. It started with a nice flyby, …

and progressed to the impressive hovering maneuver they can do. Sadly, I didn’t get to see it try for anything, let alone land a fish, before it moved on to a new spot.

Closer to the water, there are still a couple of spotted sandpipers keeping the killdeer company, and here’s the one that let me sneak a picture.

At the pond, I was surprised to find no trace of the wood duck hen and her dozen ducklings, despite a couple of visits. I’m sure they’ll turn up, but until then, we’ll just have to make do with this green heron fishing at the edge of the west lawn.

In case you’ve forgotten, here’s a reminder of just how much neck they keep coiled up under those feathers.

Back at the southern soccer fields, I was happy to find a kingbird again, and even happier to find a pair of them. It’s a shame I couldn’t get them to pose together, but one kingbird is better than none, right?

Finally, I did hear a few indigo buntings throughout the park, but none would allow me the portrait this youngster let me have yesterday.

I see that the weather tomorrow is supposed to be a repeat of today, and possibly even nicer, so here’s hoping that I have better luck!

Meteorological summer gets off to a fine start…

Meteorological summer kicked off this morning in Estabrook Park with cloudy skies, mild temps, and nearly still air. I sure could have used a bluer sky, but as a wise man once opined, two out of three ain’t bad.

I had a little time before our 7am meet-up at the beer garden parking lot, so I stopped by the pond, and I’m beginning to hope that we have a nesting pair of green herons there. I’ve been seeing a couple, or more, pretty regularly lately, and here’s one hunting up some breakfast for today.

I don’t believe I took any pictures in the 7 o’clock hour, but after our whole group was assembled at 8am, this mature Cooper’s hawk swooped in as we were making our way to the river. Wouldn’t a bluer sky have been a nice addition?

As is the case with many of the birds in the park, whether they migrate or not, the northern flickers make quite a racket for a few weeks in the spring, but then they go mostly silent after the couples are all sorted out, and nesting season gets under way. This guy didn’t really break the radio silence today, but he did let me have a real nice picture for a change.

When we finally made it to the pond, a pair of green herons were still calling and flitting about, but I was even more thrilled to see our first ducklings there for the year. Hallelujah and congratulations to the new mom! If you count carefully, I believe you can come up with the same twelve fluffy little heads that I did. I didn’t get to see if they emerged from one of the nesting boxes I help Gene install on the island, but we’re already twelve ducklings ahead of where we were last year when those boxes were laying on the ground, so putting them up on posts sure didn’t hurt!

As I was working on a presentable duckling shot, Jenny frantically signaled for me to look up, because that’s where some real action was getting underway. I don’t know if it was on purpose or simply an innocent mistake, but a hawk had entered restricted airspace, and at least three red-winged blackbird males had scrambled to neutralize the threat.

I was too busy trying to keep my lens pointed in the right direction to pay much attention to exactly which hawk it was, but I figured it was probably a Cooper’s hawk, if only because that’s all I’ve been seeing in Estabrook lately. If you look at the picture above, however, after I’ve cleaned it up a bit, you can see that that’s no Cooper’s hawk.

Even better, the red-winged blackbirds enticed it to show us the top side, as well, and with that evidence, my sources inform me that this is a broad-winged hawk, which we’ve only seen once before just last summer. “Welcome back, Sweetie, and watch out for the red-winged blackbirds!”

Finally, just as I was approaching the Oak Leaf Trail to exit the park and go have something to eat, I spotted this guy already enjoying his own breakfast of dandelion seeds. I read that the brown patches suggest a first-year male.

Tomorrow is forecast to repeat much of this morning, but without the clouds, so I look forward to a chance for some even prettier pictures, and we’ll see if I can deliver on that soon enough.

It’s time to close the book on May…

I had a nice enough morning in Estabrook Park, but I kept waiting for a chance to photograph someone new or someone we soon won’t see for a while, but that chance never came. Oh, there are still plenty of pretty sights to see, don’t worry about that, but I’ve gotta recalibrate my expectations now that spring migration appears to be all wrapped up. Thus, I didn’t get a single picture today, which is just the opportunity I’ve been waiting for to show you a few more pictures from our recent trip to Africa.

I already showed you a southern red-billed horn-bill, but you will be stunned to learn that there are also southern yellow-billed horn-bills (Tockus leucomelas), and here’s the one we saw at Pilanesberg National Park.

This next picture may be a little confusing at first glance, and part of that is because there are two birds snuggling together as they hang from that little branch. You can see their two little black faces and beaks pressed together in the middle near the top of that pile of gray feathers, and you can see the left foot of the bird on the right wrapped around that branch and just below its face. These cuties are Speckled Mousebirds (Colius striatus), and besides snuggling, they seemed to like foraging together in a little flock of 6-12 birds in the trees around the Holiday Inn Parking lot.

Also near the Holiday Inn, close to where I spotted that crested barbet, there were at least three of these handsome Rameron Pigeons (Columba arquatrix) crowded onto the top of that evergreen tree. The name appears to have been recently changed to African Olive Pigeon, but that hasn’t percolated through to all my sources yet.

We’ve seen northern shovelers in Estabrook Park and South Holland, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to find that the shovelers in South Africa are not northern shovelers. Instead, this one at the fabulous Korsman Bird Sanctuary is called a Cape Shoveler (Spatula smithii).

I did see at least one mallard there, as well, but the far more interesting duck was this striking creature, a Yellow-billed Duck (Anas undulata).

I’ve already shown you a nice portrait of the fiscal flycatcher that hung out near the Holiday Inn, and I read that it is named after this similar looking bird, a Southern Fiscal (Lanius collaris), which is a shrike. I read that the name “fiscal” comes from the Afrikaans word for tax collectors, who were known to wear black and white, and it is believed that the fiscal flycatcher has evolved to look like the shrike to protect itself from predators, an example of Batesian mimicry.“

Finally, I’ve shown you bright green rose-ringed parakeets from South Holland before, and it turns out that they have also been introduced to South Africa, but I had no idea that they also come in blue, until now.

It’s supposed to be mostly cloudy and cool tomorrow morning, but the winds should be very light for our weekly wildlife walk, so if there are any late birds still migrating through, we should be able to hear them. Or you can just point out to me any of the dozens of perfectly fine species that’ll be here all summer. Either way, I’ll stop by the beer garden parking lot to look for you at 7am and again at 8.

Another dry day in May…

The nice weather continued this morning in Estabrook Park, although the breeze did pick back up a bit, but not so much that I couldn’t hear the birds singing. There are still a few warblers hanging around, but none wanted to be in the pictures today.

Instead, the red-breasted merganser was still out in the open on the river, and appears to have moved on from the washing phase to the drying phase. I hope he gets things sorted out soon so he can catch up to his compadres.

Here’s a little cutie we don’t get to see in Estabrook Park too often, a chipping sparrow, who, despite chipping his heart out, took me nearly as long to get eyes on as the cerulean warbler.

Another sign that summer can’t be too far off was this bullfrog in the river keeping an eye on me as I lined up this shot.

I did see a couple batches of goslings this morning, but this picture from Thursday came out better, and I’d say they’re starting to look like tweens.

There were also a couple of spotted sandpipers flitting about, now that the river is nice and low, but I couldn’t beat this picture from Tuesday.

When I got back from Namibia, I caught just the tail end of the annual toad mating frenzy on the river, but I didn’t get any pictures, and this toad I saw on Thursday seemed kinda tired and might have been just hopping away from that happy event.

Finally, I took this picture with my phone, but I clearly didn’t check the result closely enough to see if it had focused on the right subject, because it sure seemed more interested in my dirty finger than the pretty dragonfly perched on it, our very first Common Baskettail (Epitheca cynosura). The rule is, however, that I can’t list it in our index of species pictured in the park until I include it in a post, and who knows if or when I’ll ever see one again, so here we are.

The winds are supposed to back off a bit while the clouds thicken up a bit for tomorrow morning, but there is still no rain in the forecast, so it appears that this month will go down in the history books as our driest May yet. I wonder who will show up to usher it out the door.

Summer weather eases back in…

It was a chilly morning in Estabrook Park, with temps in the high 40s, but the recent little cool snap appears to be winding down, the wind has also hit pause, and we’re due to hit 70°F this afternoon. Phew!

The cool, still air made for a light fog over the warm river water, and here’s the wood duck hen and her five ducklings in the thick of it.

Farther upstream, just as I approached the islands above the falls, I spotted a group of deer wading across to the far riverbank. I thought at first they were the pair we’ve been seeing lately, but there were three of them, and they’re all bucks. I wonder where they’ve wandered in from. Has your garden run out of tulips?

As I was hoping the bucks would get closer together for a nice group shot, three great blue herons glided downstream overhead, and here’s the straggler of the bunch.

The warblers have mostly all flown north by now, but they’ve left a few stragglers behind, too, and here’s a magnolia warbler hunting for bugs on a crabapple tree by the river.

A bigger surprise today was spotting one last red-breasted merganser on the river, and it’s only the second one spotted in the park all month. “What’s the holdup, Buddy?”

Finally, the first batch of robin chicks have fledged, and here’s one begging Dad for more breakfast.

And here’s dutiful Dad coughing up the goods. If you look closely, you can see that they’ve both covered their eyes with that inner lid they have for just such occasions.

Lastly, we had a great showing last evening for the Milwaukee Birders’ Birds and Brews. I counted 19 bird species in just over an hour, and I was sure glad I had packed another layer to put on for the brews hour. The next one is scheduled for June 4 in Humboldt Park, in case you’re sorry you missed this one.