Signs of Life in Estabrook Park

Nicaragua to the rescue one more time…

Unlike the record-setting, warm and sunny day we had yesterday in Estabrook Park, today was cloudy, cool, and a little raw. Worse, nobody wanted their picture taken this morning, and I was reduced to capturing these two robins, who were intent on finishing their bath even if I was standing nearby. Oh, well.

Luckily, I haven’t yet reached the bottom of the Nicaragua barrel, so here are a few more sights. First up are a couple of white-nosed coati (Nasua narica) we saw on a hike around the rim of the Mombacho volcano caldera. They were probably tamed, so not my ideal wildlife photo subject, but they were completely unconfined and definitely native to the area, so I’ll take what I can get.

As we waited to board the ferry to Ometepe, I noticed these nests dangling from the fronds of a royal palm, and my sources tell me they are Montezuma oropendola nests. I figured I had to be near a similar colony in Granada, simply because of the number of birds I saw there and how frequently I saw them flying to and from a particular spot on the horizon. That spot was behind a chain link fence, however, so not really an option for me, since I prefer to stay out of jail, and these will just have to do.

Once we got to our cabin on the island, we found that it already had a guest. This is reported to be a Stauffer’s tree frog (Scinax staufferi), and I bet it could have sat comfortably on a US quarter, but it was on the back of our sink the morning I encountered it. The little rascal could really hop, and it took me a couple of tries, but I was eventually able to corral it and set it free to hunt for bugs in the great outdoors.

Visitor in our room, a Stauffer's Tree Frog

I’ve shown you several pictures already from the little mud puddle behind our cabin, but this gives you a better idea of the density it attracted. From left to right, that’s a little blue heron, a young jacana, a pair of common gallinules, a black-necked stilt, and another young jacana. Holy cow, right?

Little blue heron, northern jacana, Common Gallinules, Black-necked stilt common ga

Here’s another, zoomed-out look at the little colony of proboscis bats we saw roosting on the underside of a leaning tree during our kayak ride. They’re pretty well camouflaged against the tree bark, but I count eleven individuals.

Finally, here’s one more look at one of the gorgeous black-necked stilts that I saw every morning on that little river in Granada. In the low light, it was super handy that they would sometimes stand perfectly still.

I see were in for some rain overnight, but it is supposed to wrap up and clear out by sunrise, so here’s hoping that somebody will want to perch in the sun as they dry out tomorrow. I’ll keep you posted.

A nice, warm start to the week…

It was a little cloudy and a little breezy this morning in Estabrook Park, but it was also a glorious 40°F, so quite a welcome taste of the spring weather to come. I feared that the river path would be a mud bath, but it must have been just clear enough and just cool enough overnight for radiant cooling to do the rest, and the mud was nice and firm, at least for the first hour and a half.

The nice weather and/or Presidents Day brought out a couple of walkers I haven’t seen in a while, so it was great to catch up as we headed for the river. The ice is melting, but much of it has a nice reflective layer of snow on top, so it’s taking its sweet time. In the widening gaps, we saw Canada geese, mallards, common mergansers, a few common goldeneyes, and here’s a hen of the latter.

The lone red-breasted merganser drake is still with us, as well, and here he is just about to hide behind a mallard pair.

The next most interesting critter we saw on our walk was a white-throated sparrow by the pond, but it evaded my camera, and then it was time for folks to get on with their day. I headed home, too, and on my way, this little red squirrel seemed to be quite upset with me. It scampered around for a bit and eventually ended up on this perch where it could shout down at me. “I’m not sure what I did, but I sure am sorry, sweetie! Oh, and you’ve got a little mud on your nose.”

Finally, as I neared the south end, I found this white-breasted nuthatch busily foraging away and far too busy to pay me no nevermind.

Since I’ve come up short on local pictures once again, here are a few second looks at some of the beauties we saw in Nicaragua. Here’s another look at the bare-throated tiger-heron pair, in which he looks like he’s shouting “Woo hoo! We’re looking for nesting sites!” while she appears to be contemplating the actual logistics of building a nest there and with this lunatic.

Here’s another look at the common squirrel-cuckoo at the Apoyo Lagoon Natural Reserve, which better shows its decurved cuckoo bill.

Lastly, here’s another look at the young black-crowned night-heron struggling to get a huge fish lined up to slide into its gullet.

It is supposed to be cooler and cloudier tomorrow, so who knows what I’ll find, but I’ll be sure to show you whatever it is. Oh, and before I forget, I’ve got a few new talks lined up, and I’ll be the only one on the agenda, at least for my allotted time slot, so if you still haven’t had a chance to grill me on camera settings before a live audience, check out these upcoming opportunities.

A sneak peek at sights to come…

The air was very mild and still this morning, but the sky was pretty full of clouds at sunrise, and some of them even leaked on me a bit, so the weather in Estabrook Park was sort of a mixed bag. I wanted to join the Milwaukee Birders for their visit to the Schlitz Audubon Nature Center, so I didn’t have a lot of time, and the most interesting sight I saw was this little cutie putting in a rare daytime appearance.

I read that opossums don’t hibernate, but they do stay in their dens during extreme cold, and after the winter we’ve been having so far, I bet this one was hungry. If you are not yet a fan of opossums, consider the fact that they eat small rodents and ticks, thereby helping to keep those populations in check.

Then it was time to get up to Schlitz. They had a great turnout, with at least a couple dozen folks, and the skies had cleared up by then, so the weather was just beautiful. If it wasn’t for this handsome, male bluebird, however, it would have been a shutout for me, picture wise. We heard plenty of birds, and I’m not sure why they kept mostly out of sight, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes.

Since I’ve still got plenty of room, and we haven’t yet exhausted my supply of Nicaragua pictures, if you can believe it, let me show you some of the birds we saw there that we might expect to see here in a month or three.

This little darling is a Philadelphia vireo, and we last saw one in Estabrook last May.

There were also rose-breasted grosbeaks, and here’s a male. We saw a female in Estabrook last September.

Probably the most common “northerner” we saw was the yellow warbler, and here’s a female.

Finally, in the little puddle behind our cabin on Ometepe, which was usually full of stilts, gallinules, lapwings, and jacanas, this pair of blue-winged teal hens put in a brief appearance. One was even kind enough to flash us that teal wing patch. We saw a pair of drakes just last March, so these two better get a move on.

Tomorrow morning is forecast to be even warmer than today, and just as still, but maybe the clouds won’t clear out quite as nicely. It will be crazy nice weather for mid-February, anyway, so if you’ve wanted to come out for our wildlife walk, but the cold has been holding you back, this is your big chance. Look for me in the beer garden parking lot at 8am.

Some sights we don’t get to see often…

I had reason to run out to the Wehr Nature Center this morning, and the event was at 9am, so I figured I should get there before the sun rose. That way I could spend my daylight looking for wildlife there instead of while sitting in my car. Anyway, this is who I found.

I hadn’t even left the parking lot when I heard the now-familiar call of a bluebird. It turns out that there were at least two, and this is the one I could catch sitting still enough for a picture in the low light. We’ve seen them during the winter in Estabrook before, but not yet this winter.

When I finally did get out of the parking lot, I found a small herd of deer in the fields beside the road into the lot, and here’s the buck that was with them keeping a wary eye on me.

Meanwhile, a flock of wild turkeys was taking over the bird feeders, and they had more than one tom with them. It was a fairly small and crowded space for such large birds, but here’s a tom I could catch by himself for a moment. That gray arc across his belly is the little chain they have put up to demark the feeder area. We do get to see turkeys in Estabrook from time to time, but not yet this year and not yet a tom that I know of. Man, that morning sun was really lighting him up, eh? I sure hope the hens appreciate the effort he’s making.

The turkeys were not the only birds at the feeders, and on a second pass, there were at least six pine siskins flitting about in the trees above it. We do see them in Estabrook, but not even as often as turkeys, and I’ve only ever seen one at a time there. It was fun for me to hear them chattering amongst themselves.

While walking around the pond, I heard a tufted titmouse nice and clear, but I could not put eyes on the little stinker. Instead, I had a momentary sense of elation when I spotted the tuft on the head of this beauty, but this is a cedar waxwing, of course. We get to see them in Estabrook even more frequently than turkeys, but the titmice there have also managed to elude my gaze. Someday, My Loves!

Finally, I attended the event and headed for home, but it was a beautiful day, and I already had the car out, so how could I not stop at the lakefront on my way home, right? You know I like a good, cold winter as much as the next guy, and maybe a bit more, but I was happy to see some open water already, nevertheless. I couldn’t find any curiosities in it, however, just the usual suspects: geese, mallards, mergansers, goldeneyes, scaups, and buffleheads. The most interesting sight turned out to be raptors on a breakwater about a mile NNE of the South Shore Yacht Club. You can just make out eight of them perched on the icy concrete and two in the air, and I caught one of them flying close enough to shore for me to positively id it as a young bald eagle. They appeared to be having a regular Valentine’s Day mixer out on the lake! Ha! Good for them!

For the curious, that looming white rectangular shape in the far background is Milwaukee’s Linnwood Water Treatment Plant north of Bradford Beach, and it was about five miles away. Oh, and the Wehr Nature Center was fabulous. I hope you get a chance to visit it.

Lastly, I hope you have as good a time today as these eagles seemed to.

Finally, enough local content for a whole post…

As promised, it was a gorgeous morning in Estabrook Park, with seasonably mild temps, a very light breeze, and plenty of blue sky and sunshine. Happily, for me at least, it was well below freezing overnight so the unpaved path along the river was all frozen back up after thawing a bit yesterday afternoon.

The first exciting sight of the morning was this common merganser hen with a nice big fish in the open water just above the falls. There were a couple of other hens and a drake in that same water, and each offered to help her with that fish, some multiple times, but she did her best to handle it on her own.

I don’t know if it was the relative warmth or just lucky timing, but the red-breasted merganser drake at the far north end was finally off the ice and looking for fish. I didn’t see him have any luck, though.

Maybe it was just TGIF vibes, but another thrilling sight was this pair of mature-looking bald eagles high over the far riverbank. If I had to guess, the one on the right looks a little smaller and so is probably the male. The larger one, on the left, is probably the female, and she appears to have some dark streaks still in her white feathers, but I don’t know if that’s an indication of young age or just a slight variation on the theme.

The biggest surprise of the day, at least according to the ebird website, which considers it “rare” here for this time of year, is this hermit thrush foraging in the freshly exposed leaf litter with the robins. If I were a bettin’ man, I’d bet this is the same bird I saw nearby in January.

The biggest surprise for me, on the other hand, was finally seeing a great horned owl again. My last sighting was all the way back at the beginning of December! Welcome back, you magnificent creature!

Back at the south end, I finally found someone willing to pose for the camera in full, warm sun with that nice blue sky behind it, and in case that red cap it is wearing trips you up, that’s a male red-bellied woodpecker. Thanks, Sweetie!

Finally, back on the river and almost in the shadow of the Capitol Ave bridge, the one common goldeneye I saw today was this handsome drake, and you can even see some of the green sheen his head feathers have.

The gradual warming trend is supposed to continue into tomorrow, so I can’t wait to see who else it brings out.

“Blinding, Fierce, and Shockingly Electric”

This morning in Estabrook Park, the air was a little colder, the wind was a little lighter, and the clouds where a whole lot thicker than yesterday. Ah well, Meat Loaf is proven right yet again. The wildlife was pretty much the same, except that I didn’t see any deer, and this magnificent creature, a red-tailed hawk, put in a somewhat-veiled appearance over the upstream island instead.

The good news is that this finally gives me the opportunity I’ve been waiting for, to tell you a fascinating story of life and death in Nicaragua. It started on Saturday morning after breakfast at our lodge on Ometepe. I’ve been calling it a hotel, but lodge really fits better. Anyway, we were walking back to our cabin when I spotted this enormous, shiny, dark-blue wasp on the ground. I would estimate its size and shape to be a good match for the first two digits of my pinkie finger, so I snapped this picture and tried to reposition myself for a better look.

By the time I had moved, so had the wasp, and I watched it latch onto a clump of something and begin to tow it. Upon closer inspection, that clump of something turned out to be a smallish tarantula! And that makes the wasp a Mexican tarantula-hawk wasp (Pepsis mexicana). Meanwhile, my sources tell me that the hapless tarantula is likely a Costa Rican blue front tarantula (Aphonopelma crinirufum).

As amazing as all that sounds, a giant wasp battling a tarantula, like some B horror movie, the story of what happens next is even grimmer. The wasp sting paralyzes the spider but does not kill it. Instead, the wasp drags it into a burrow, possibly even the spider’s own burrow, and lays an egg on it. “When the wasp larva hatches, it creates a small hole in the spider’s abdomen, then enters and feeds voraciously, avoiding vital organs for as long as possible to keep the spider alive.” How’s that for breakfast hot and fresh?

But wait, there’s more! Out of curiosity, and not completely idle, either, I wondered how painful the sting would be of such a large wasp. Well, it “is rated near the top of the Schmidt sting pain index, second only to that of the bullet ant, and is described by Schmidt as “blinding, fierce[, and] shockingly electric”.” Fun, eh? Even funner, the warrior wasps we saw on Thursday also have “an extremely painful sting (rating at the highest level of 4 in the Schmidt sting pain index).” Sheesh! That’s two of the top three! Meat Loaf, you’ve made your point!

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Mexican Tarantula-hawk Wasp dragging a stung Costa Rican Blue Front Tarantula

Okay. Enough of that, and time for a pallet cleanser. Here’s a pretty limpkin that Deb spotted in the little marshy yard behind our cabin on Ometepe.

Here’s a young mantled howler monkey checking out the oddly hairless and pale apes on the ground below.

Finally, here’s one more gorgeous butterfly, a band-celled sister (Adelpha fessonia), from that amazing hike to see petroglyphs.

The forecast for tomorrow looks awesome, so maybe some little critters will finally show their faces.

Back to Estabrook again…

It was great to be back in Estabrook Park this morning, as always, and the gorgeous weather was just icing on my cake. The sky was clear, the winds were pretty light, and temps were in the mid-twenties: about as perfect as mid-February can get. It looks as though it was cold while we were away because the ice on the river was about as thick as I’ve ever seen it, and the open water is confined to just a few narrow and windy ribbons.

When I first saw the ice, I worried a little that it would be too much for our visiting ice birds, but I needn’t have, and here’s the drake of a goldeneye pair near the south end.

A fun surprise was encountering four deer coming south on the river path. There was one buck with antlers and three likely does without. Two of the does and the buck quickly scampered up the bluff, but the last doe hung out for a second, either out of curiosity or to see if it really had to make the climb or not. I didn’t mind giving it time to make up its mind, but I wasn’t turning around and heading the other way either, so it eventually opted to join its comrades atop the bluff. “Sorry, Sweetie.”

At the next sliver of open water, above the falls, I found our only common merganser of the morning, this wide-eyed hen. My long lens foreshortens distance a bit, but you can get an impression of just how narrow are the gaps in the ice.

Finally, at the northwest end, just downstream of the Port Washington Road bridge, there was a much wider patch of open water, and that’s where the mallards and the Canada geese had congregated, but there was another bird napping on the ice who I initially thought was another common merganser. Upon closer inspection, however, I realized that this was our very first red-breasted merganser of the winter in Estabrook. Woo hoo! Even better, spectacle-wise at least, he’s a drake, and their spiky head feathers rival those of the common merganser hens. Here’s hoping he sticks around for a bit so I can get a better picture.

The birds were oddly quiet around the pond, and I searched in vain for the Cooper’s hawk who I figured must be the cause, but I came up empty. Heck, I couldn’t even catch a woodpecker posing in front of that gorgeous blue sky. Oh well. That leaves me a little room to show you a couple more sights from Nicaragua.

Besides iguanas, we saw plenty of house geckos clinging to interior walls, and this one rose-bellied lizard (Sceloporus variabilis) on the grounds of our hotel on Ometepe. I thought for sure I’d seen one before even if I hadn’t shown you, but I can find no record to that effect, so I suppose this is a handsome new creature for me.

I’ve shown you plenty of doves before, but this is the first presentable picture I’ve managed to capture of a white-tipped dove (Leptotila verreauxi). It gets its name from the white tips on its tail feathers, which isn’t too surprising, but I find it a little interesting that “the eye-ring is typically red in most of its range, but blue in most of the Amazon and northern South America.” Huh.

Finally, here’s yet another butterfly from that hike we took on Sunday in search of petroglyphs. This one is a tiger longwing (Heliconius hecale), and the Wikipedia article on them lists twenty-nine (29!) subspecies. Yikes, that seems like a lot!

Lastly, I’d like to thank Anne for planning such an awesome trip for us again and my sister Deb for coming along and helping us spot such amazing sights.

Nicaragua wrap-up…

Anne and I made it home safely this afternoon after a couple of wonderfully uneventful flights, and it appears that I will have no trouble getting back into Estabrook Park tomorrow morning. In the meantime, let me show you a few more sights from Nicaragua.

The river we were kayaking up on Saturday petered out into a wide-open soggy field, and when we arrived, it was full of ducks. A couple were the Muscovy ducks I already showed you, and the rest, dozens and dozens of them, were black-bellied whistling-ducks. Long-time readers may recall that we’ve already seen birds by that name in Brazil, but they don’t quite look the same. Well, it turns out that those were probably “South American adults (subspecies autumnalis)“, and the ones in Nicaragua were probably “northern juveniles (ssp. fulgens)“.

Another bird that we’ve already seen before, just this fall in Belize, is the roadside hawk, but this one at our lodge on Ometepe was way more accommodating and let me take a very nice portrait.

As I mentioned when I showed you the purple gallinule on Saturday, there were also common gallinules, which we have seen at Horicon, and they’re not quite as flashy as their purple cousins, but they are still pretty sharp looking birds, if you ask me.

I saw plenty of jacanas on this trip, and I just showed you one this fall, but that was an adult, so here’s a youngster, which I haven’t shown you since Brazil.

Finally, here’s one more butterfly from that hike we took on Sunday in search of petroglyphs: a Dyar’s or confused swallowtail (Battus ingenuus). In my picture, it sure looks like it has a long thin spar extending from its wingtip, which got me all excited, but my sources make no mention of such a thing, so perhaps it is just a stray strand of spider silk, or something like that. We may never know.

In closing, let me just say that Nicaragua exceeded all my expectations. The people are super friendly, the wildlife was amazing, the food was delicious, the driving was easy, and I’d recommend it to anyone looking to get off the beaten path a bit.

A fine Nicaraguan sendoff!

We enjoyed one last beautiful morning on Ometepe today, and it almost seemed as if this pair of tiger-herons had come to see us off. Actually, it is far more likely that they were searching for nesting sites, but either way, they put on one heck of a show.

Then, as we sat down for our last breakfast beside Lake Nicaragua, a young black-crowned night-heron caught and, after a long struggle, swallowed a huge fish whole. My sources tell me that the fish was likely a tilapia.

Our ferry ride and drive back to Managua was mostly uneventful, and I was able to return the rental car one more time with no tickets, scratches, or dents. As we sat by the hotel pool enjoying our supper, two large and noisy parrots flew in and perched nearly above us. Best of all, they turned out to be my first yellow-naped Amazons (Amazona auropalliata) and our 95th bird species for this trip. Not bad for amateurs!

Another one of those 95 is this Muscovy duck (Cairina moschata) from our kayaking adventure yesterday. I read that they are “native to the Americas, from the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas and Mexico south to Argentina and Uruguay.” Furthermore, “the species was first scientifically described by Carl Linnaeus [the guy who cooked up the “binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming organisms”] in his 1758 edition of Systema Naturae as Anas moschata, literally meaning “musk duck”.”

Finally, here’s another one of the beautiful butterflies from the hike yesterday, a malachite (Siproeta stelenes). I read that “it is named for the mineral malachite, which is similar in color to the bright green on the butterfly’s wings.”

Our flight is scheduled to leave at 6:45 tomorrow morning, but at least the airport is just across the street. If things go smoothly, I should be back in Estabrook Park Wednesday morning. Keep your fingers crossed!

Catch-up day on Ometepe…

It was another great day in Nicaragua, but we backed off on the pace of adventures a bit, so I’m starting to get caught up with my photo processing. Here’s one of the amazing birds from yesterday morning on the hotel grounds before we even set out for the day. It looked to be about the size of an ibis or a limpkin, but with a much shorter beak, and it has the fantastically descriptive name of double-striped thick-knee (Hesperoburhinus bistriatus).

We’ve been seeing plenty of parrots and parakeets, but they usually keep to the treetops, so the pictures tend not to be anything to write home about. This little cutie, however, perched not too high and even in front of a thick branch to give it not the worst background. Anyway, it turns out to be an orange-fronted parakeet (Eupsittula canicularis) and another first for me.

I’ve already shown you a variegated squirrel before, from Granada, but its coloration was a smidge outside the norm, so here’s one from Ometepe with the classic cinnamon underside.

This morning got off to a great start when I spotted this gorgeous banded wren (Thryophilus pleurostictus) in the bushes right outside our room.

After breakfast we went in search of petroglyphs, of which we found a few, and Capuchin monkeys, with which we had no luck. What we did have luck with, on the other hand, was this handsome brown-crested flycatcher (Myiarchus tyrannulus). It looks so much like the great crested flycatchers we see in Estabrook that I was sure I had seen one before, but ebird assures me that if I did, I didn’t record it, so I guess that makes it one more new bird for me. Woo hoo!

Finally, the trail to the petroglyphs run through some woods that were just full of butterflies, and here’s one of the most stunning: a Dirce beauty or zebra mosaic (Colobura dirce), I believe. Interestingly, at least for me, I saw at least two, and they both were perched on tree trunks facing straight down. Perhaps perching with the “eye spot” at the top is part of a defensive strategy.

Tomorrow, we start making our way home, and the first step will be catching the ferry back to the mainland and then driving back to Managua. There, we’ll stay at the Best Western across from the airport again and maybe get a chance to look for wildlife one more time on the grounds before night falls. Lastly, we all have early flights home the next morning.