Signs of Life in Estabrook Park

Another smokey day…

The Canadian wildfire smoke is back and thick enough for even me to be able to smell it when I first stepped outside this morning. It was great to be back in Estabrook Park, nevertheless, and the first treat to greet me was the doe and her fawn crossing the river at the north end from the island to our shore. Once they got there, they stopped to sample the leaves of a willow tree that appears to have dropped a branch in the last day or two.

Back at the pond, a female belted kingfisher didn’t let me get too close, but close enough for this picture.

Meanwhile a young-looking great blue heron was intently focused on something along the far shore.

It was this female wood duck who stole the show today, however, when she posed on a log just right to catch the little bit of sunlight that was getting through.

Back at the north end, this time with the dozen or so Milwaukee Birders who came out today, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of butterflies on the wildflowers in the meadow. Here’s an American Lady, whom we haven’t seen since June, discreetly using some leaves to hide her roughed-up patches.

This pearl crescent, on the other hand, looked brand-spanking new, and so had nothing to hide. I was quite surprised to find not just one, but at least three of them, which is a first for me.

Not to be outdone, this tiny fiery skipper, seemed to be saying “ooh, ooh, look at me, too!”

Finally, this snowberry clearwing moth, who does look a little roughed up, but not too badly, perched there for a minute and made it easy for me to get a nice picture for a change.

I read that “the smoke is expected to linger” into tomorrow, so take care of your health, but if it doesn’t bother you much, and you feel the need to get outdoors anyway, consider joining our weekly wildlife walk tomorrow morning. We’ll start at 7 a.m. and again at 8 a.m., as usual.

Kohler-Andrae 2025, Day 5

It appears that some of the Canadian wildfire smoke is back, or there is enough of it in the sky east of here, but either way, it turned the sunrise over Lake Michigan into a dim fireball this morning.

Happily, the birds didn’t notice or didn’t care, because there were plenty to see this morning, despite the weekend crowd of park goers, even at 6 a.m., and here’s one of several northern house wrens singing in the morning over the dunes behind the beach.

It took me a second to recognize this little cutie, a young or female American redstart, because I haven’t seen one since this past spring when they migrated through Estabrook.

This one was even trickier, a pine warbler, because I only got my first (bad) picture of one in Estabrook also just this past spring.

This beauty, however, I had no trouble identifying, because there’s nothing else like a red-breasted nuthatch around here.

On my way back to our campsite from the cordwalk through the Kohler Dunes State Natural Area, I stopped by the marsh along the Black River again, and perhaps because it was a chilly morning, with temps in the mid 50s, the painted turtles were up trying to catch some sun like I’ve never seen them before.

There were about a dozen American white pelicans on the river, as seems to be the norm these days, and I couldn’t believe my luck when they suddenly synchronized their fishing operations, and I was able to catch them all lined up like this.

The biggest treat for me at the Black River was getting this nice portrait of a muskrat swimming through the duckweed.

Finally, it would hardly seem like a visit to the Black River marsh if I didn’t come away with a marsh wren picture, so here we are.

Tomorrow morning I’ll be back in Estabrook Park, and so will the Milwaukee Birders, so if Monday mornings haven’t worked out for you, come on out and join them at 8:00 a.m. in the Beer Garden parking lot, and we’ll see if anyone new has shown up while I’ve been away.

Kohler-Andrae 2025, Day 4

We did have a big bike ride yesterday, and so I never managed to capture any wildlife pictures, as predicted. Happily, we had a beautiful morning in Kohler-Andrae State Park today, and the wildlife was plentiful, so here is some of what I saw.

There were at least three deer in the Kohler Dunes State Natural Area, and this is the buck.

I had only heard a towhee or two in the park before today, but they were thick this morning, and I saw at least four. Here’s the one who posed the nicest. In Estabrook they always appear to be hiding, so it is nice to see them putting on a show for a change.

There are still a couple of purple martins hanging out at the martin house, and here’s a young-looking one.

The most plentiful bird by far has got to be the cedar waxwing, and I counted at least four dozen in a couple of flocks, but sometimes they would come down to eye level to forage.

We’ve seen thirteen-lined ground squirrels here before, and one even gave us a nice close up, but this one let us have a good look at some of those thirteen lines.

The butterflies were also plentiful today, and I saw dozens of monarchs, a buckeye, a red admiral, a silver-spotted skipper, but I believe this is my very first broad-winged skipper (Poanes viator), as far as I can tell.

Finally, we eventually did see a viceroy in Estabrook, and only once as far as I can remember, but the first one I ever saw was up here just the week before.

Kohler-Andrae 2025, Day 2

A thick cloud deck rolled in sometime overnight, here at Kohler-Andrae State Park, so it was a pretty dark morning, and I gave the cordwalk through the Kohler Dunes State Natural Area a try.

I hadn’t even stepped off the pavement yet when I spotted three wild turkeys, who did their best to ignore me and focus on finding their breakfast.

Once I did reach the cordwalk, things were quiet for a while, and I never did see any deer or coyotes today, but I eventually came across a trio of sandhill cranes crossing the path, and this was the slow one.

The most colorful sight this morning, despite the dark skies, was this goldfinch amidst some knapweed blossoms.

This female bluebird did her best to brighten things up, as well, but the gray sky really worked against her.

This field sparrow, on the other hand, was far more in line with the prevailing color scheme.

This Cooper’s hawk at least let me position some evergreens behind it to take the edge off that bright-white sky.

With rain threatening, I headed back towards our campsite, but I couldn’t help myself from taking one more look on the Black River, and my reward was getting to see the sora again but from a lot closer this time.

Finally, I tried to clean up this picture from early yesterday morning as much as I could, and it is still terrible, but I believe you can make out a family of raccoons climbing the dead tree in the middle anyway. They never got much higher than that when one of them must have asked “what the heck are we hoping to find up here,” and they slowly climbed back down.

The weather is supposed to improve by tomorrow, and we’re supposed to go for a bike ride in the morning, so I’m not sure if and when I’ll get to go looking for wildlife, but if and when I do, I’ll try to show you what I found.

Kohler-Andrae 2025, Day 1

I gotta be quick today because I didn’t bring enough quarters for the Sheboygan public library parking lot. I did have a nice outing this morning at Kohler-Andrae State Park, and here are a few of the interesting sights I saw.

First up is a swamp sparrow, which we get to see during migration, but not much otherwise.

Once again, pelicans flew in to grab snacks from the Black River, which runs along the west edge of the park.

Another bird which we only get to see during migration is this blue-winged teal, the small one in the lower left amongst the wood ducks, which I didn’t realize were so much bigger.

There were plenty of green herons and a couple of great blue herons, but the treat for me was this sora skulking along the edge of the water. I’ve only ever gotten a picture of an adult in Estabrook once before.

Finally, our ruby-throated hummingbirds seemed to have disappeared after the chicks in the nest fledged, at least we hope that is what happened, so spotting this one was another treat.

Sorry about the shape of the pictures today and the lack of links, but I barely had enough time to sort through what I had, crop the best, and throw this post together. My editorial staff did not come along, so all the typographical errors are mine alone.

Estabrook Park Report #1500!

You read that right, Campers. This is indeed my 1500th post since this little operation got underway back on March 26, 2020. Since then, we’ve cataloged 322 critters in Estabrook Park on this site and about 450 on iNaturalist, where I feel free to post any recognizable picture, no matter how dark or blurry, and the number depends a little bit on exactly where you draw a rectangle to represent the border of the park. That 450 includes 216 vertebrates, comprising 19 mammals, 170 birds, 7 reptiles, only 2 amphibians, and 18 ray-finned fish. The 234 or so non-vertebrates include 33 butterflies, 45 moths, 21 dragonflies, 9 damselflies, and 11 spiders.

Anyway, we had 4 intrepid souls, including 2 first-timers, who braved the heat and humidity this morning to join me on our weekly wildlife walk, and these are some of the sights we saw. The juvenile black-crowned night heron was at the pond again, at least for the 7 a.m. crew.

The doe was beating the heat by laying in the cool weeds on the far riverbank, and we didn’t see the fawn, but we can suppose that she left it safely stashed on the island.

When we all returned to the pond, with the 8 a.m. crew, the hooded merganser put on a nice little disappearing act with this crayfish. Now you see it, …

and now you don’t. Where could it have gone?

I was surprised to find a couple of turtles, including this painted, up out of the water because the sun wasn’t shining very strongly at the moment, and I wonder if they might have been trying to cool off instead.

A special treat for me came in the meadow at the north end when I spotted this stunning chickweed geometer moth (Haematopis grataria), my very first, and I did not know that moths even came with that color scheme. I read that “male chickweed geometers have feathered antennae, while females have thinner, thread-like antennae,” so this one’s a dude.

Finally, we spotted the first red-spotted purple I’ve seen in the park so far this year, and it sure look fresh out of its chrysalis. Doesn’t it?

Lastly, this afternoon I’m off to Kohler-Andrae to join Anne at her extended family’s annual campout, and maybe this will be the summer when I finally get a picture of a least bittern. Wish me luck, and I’ll keep you posted!

Given the humidity, with a dew point in the low 70s, it was about as nice a morning in Estabrook Park as one could hope for. The temps were also in the low 70s, the air was still, and the sky was clear. For a slight change of pace, I skipped the pond on my way north, so I got to the meadow a little earlier than usual, and there I found the doe enjoying her breakfast alone again.

We’ve been seeing her pretty regularly there lately, so the bigger surprise was spotting this hawk perched high above. I figured it was a red-tailed hawk, whom we haven’t seen much of lately, but when I got home, my panel of experts pointed out that it is more likely our broad-winged hawk back again. “Woo hoo, and welcome back, Gorgeous!”

It was a pretty long shot, so I immediately backtracked to get up onto the bluff in hopes of a better picture, but the hawk had already cleared out by the time I caught sight of where it had been perched. Oh well. It was worth a try, and my consolation came in the form of this chipmunk who really wanted to finish enjoying that mulberry before scampering off.

Back in the meadow, the weeds were full of spider webs bejeweled with dew, and one still had a spider in it, who turned out to be this striking Arabesque orbweaver (Neoscona arabesca), who I believe to be the first representative of that species I’ve ever seen.

This next critter, which I found in the middle of the gravel path through the middle of the meadow is nearly as much a symbol of summer to me as are the cicadas singing in the trees. It’s our first road-duster of the year aka Carolina grasshopper, and I read that they “do not migrate,” but instead “overwinter as eggs.” Once they hatch, they can “complete development in [26 to 52 days],” depending on the temperature, so that helps explain the timing of their appearance.

When I finally did reach the pond, I found a youngish great blue heron slinking in the shadows along the far shore and momentarily striking this picturesque pose.

But the bigger surprise was finding this young black-crowned night heron in the bushes just above it and catching just the perfect ray of sunlight.

Finally, the ears of this eastern tailed-blue must have been ringing from my post yesterday, so today it gave us a fresh look at the tails and eye spots on its hind wing, although it didn’t stick around long enough for me to notice if it was wiggling them.

The forecast for tomorrow morning looks almost as good as today’s, so come on out for our weekly wildlife walk if you’re in town. Based on recent participation, we’ll be still doing both the 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. starts. If traffic goofs you up, and you miss both of those times, just look for my phone number hidden in the wildlife walk page, shoot me a text, and I’ll let you know where you can find us.

Finding what I can on a rainy day…

It was raining when the sun came up in Estabrook Park this morning, and it rained pretty steadily till almost 9 a.m. Since there didn’t appear to be any significant gaps nor heavy downpours, I grabbed an umbrella and headed out.

I guess it is a little remarkable that I didn’t get a single bird picture, but not too surprising. I did see these two, however, in the meadow on my way back south from the boat ramp, and that’s not too shabby. Oh, and you can see that the Parks Department has mowed the lawn again, but only a thin strip this time on either side of what is left of the gravel road through the middle, which is a nice improvement over last time. So, if one of you whispered in their ear to convince them to leave more flowers, it worked, and thanks! Yay!

The rain finally petered out as I approached the south end, and the hungry butterflies were the first to emerge. Here’s a monarch sampling the nectar from recently opened burdock blossoms.

And here’s a summer azure just parked on a leaf in the herb garden by the Benjamin Church House. If you look closely, you can see that the hindwings don’t quite line up with each other. In fact, it was slowly alternating which one it rotated forward while rotating the other rearward. I’ve seen this before, and today is the day I finally decided to try looking it up.

Well, I’m sure you will be as fascinated to learn as I just was that on butterflies in the same family (Lycaenidae) that have tails and eye spots on their hind wings, such as the banded hairstreak and eastern tailed blue, this behavior is “hypothesized to mimic a head with moving antennae [and is called] the ‘false head effect’,” and is “likely to deflect attacks away from vital parts.” I can only guess that other butterflies in the same family that do not have tails and spots simply inherited the ‘false head effect’ behavior anyway. Wild, huh?

Keeping cool by the lake…

While the rest of the country broils under the latest heat dome, Estabrook Park and its surrounding communities is enjoying the cooling effect this morning of its own giant misting system, aka a gentle breeze blowing off of Lake Michigan.

With all the mist and heavy cloud cover, I didn’t have high hopes for this morning, so I couldn’t believe my luck when I found this beauty lurking high in a tree just west of the soccer fields. Well, I must admit that my “luck” was hugely aided by the jays, flickers, robins, and even orioles who were all loudly urging it to find another tree somewhere else. You can get some indication of how dim the light was this morning by how dilated its pupils are. With almost no yellow iris showing, which I don’t believe I’ve seen from them before, I wondered for a second if it might be a barred owl, but the “great horns” really give it away.

At the pond, I was a little disappointed to find no herons today, but the hooded merganser did its best to fill in for them, and I think it did a fine job. Don’t you?

The sandpipers were also sleeping in this morning, so I didn’t find anything to photograph at the north end, but this tough-looking chipmunk staring me down as I made my way back south made up for that. I even wondered for a moment if it was going to let me pass, but it eventually relented and scampered into the brush beside the trail.

Most of the dragonflies were in hiding, as well, so here’s a handsome male blue dasher from yesterday, when they were plentiful.

And here’s a striking female to go with, if they both should so choose, of course.

Finally, I was thrilled to find a butterfly this morning, given all the other absences, and that it was a mourning cloak was just icing on the cake.

Lastly, I finally remembered to take a picture of the sign that MMSD has posted at the top of the stairs by the beer garden, which I believe shows what they intend to do with the falls better than any image I could find on their website.

Look who the hot and humid air brought with it this time…

The cloud cover has grown pretty thick, and there was a good breeze for a while, so the heat wasn’t really as bad as the forecast had suggested for this morning in Estabrook Park, although it was already in the 80s by 8 a.m., and the humidity percentage was in the 70.

I did see the hooded merganser, a wood duck, and a great blue heron all at the pond, but my favorite this morning was this green heron fishing just off the far shore.

At the river, I was surprised to find a mallard hen and her two ducklings grazing on a landing about halfway up the falls, but I guess the penalty for slipping would be simply having to scamper back up again.

At the north end, I did see kingfishers and a spotted sandpiper, but the star of that show today was this solitary sandpiper just off the near shore and catching a bit of morning sun.

At the weeds beside the soccer fields, I found our first wandering glider of the year. Yay! And welcome back!

Finally, at the crest of the bluff just south of the beer garden, I spotted this butterfly dancing around, and I held my breath while hoping for it to land where I could see it. Well, it finally did land, and when I got a good look at it, I figured it was another variegated fritillary, which we have seen in Estabrook for the first time only a month ago.

I am thrilled to report, however, that it turns out to be a great spangled fritillary, instead. I have seen one before, in the Mequon Nature Preserve, but I had only dreamed about finding one in Estabrook someday. Woo Hoo! And what a beauty, eh?