It was a fine morning for ducks, geese, or anyone else wearing a full-body dry-suit, cold with on-and-off precipitation. Nevertheless, I found a gap in the green blob on the radar, so where we go.

There are still 4 couples and a 9th wheel of geese on the pond, and a second couple appears to have settled in for the long haul on the far northeast tip of the island. Maybe that means we’ll get two sets of goslings by the end of April. Yay! Can you even imagine?

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Meanwhile, the other couples keep vying for a site, and preparing for when they get one.

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The wood ducks seem to be settled in as well. Today there were two drakes and a hen. She’s always more adventurous than those showboats, coming right up on the lawn, along with the geese and the mallards, to check on what I might have brought, perhaps because she expects to need the calories more. I always explain to all of them, though, that I don’t have anything for them because anything I could bring wouldn’t be good for them, and they’re mistaking me for the old guy who visits in the afternoon.

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I didn’t see as much of the river as usual, due to all the recent rain and ensuing mud, but I did happen upon this endearing little scene. I guess if she’s gonna have a showboat, she wants him to look the part.

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There were plenty of mallards about, as usual. They’re like robins, quite sticking in appearance really, but so successful that they hardly even register anymore.

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Finally, I did find some new splashes of color despite the grey skies and water. Here they are.

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PS. Long time reader and previous guest contributor, Prof. Erica Young, has sent in another amazing sighting. Keep your eyes peeled and your camera ready!

That’s right, boys and girls, it was exactly 1 year ago today that I breathlessly fired off an email message to a few friends and family whom I thought might be interested to learn that there was a wood duck on the pond in Estabrook Park. Before then, I didn’t even know wood ducks existed, let alone what they looked like, or the fact that I could find them after a short walk from my front door.

But look at us now! We’ve seen 87 species, not counting fish, bugs, and sundry other creepy-crawlies because I haven’t gotten around to counting them all yet. I’ve taken 19,225 pictures, published 244 posts, and there are 75 of us, including me. Besides all the fantastic critters, I’ve found 2 tasty cans of park beer, several cans of park beans, a baggie of park oregano, 2 park folding knives, 1 fine pair of National Geographic^TM branded park binoculars, which I now use almost every day, countless park fishing tackle, a bunch of park money (including a 50,000 Indonesian Rupiah note now worth $3.47 US because I didn’t trade it in when I could), several dozen park nerf darts, and all kinds of other park junk that Anne wishes I would just throw away. But Honey, these are my treasures!

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Thanks to all of you for coming along on this adventure, and now onward to today’s activity! It would have been cool to have a picture today of something amazing, like a coyote catching a mallard from the river or a bald eagle catching a fish from the pond, but that is not how nature works, it seems. She’s got her own schedule, and all we can do is observe.

Alright, alright, I’ll stop typing and show you some pictures. At the top of the list is our first wee kinglet of the season, golden crowned by the looks of it, searching for a snack on its way to breeding grounds that start just upstate and continue all the way to Hudson Bay.

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Next stop is the pond, where the goose shake-out continues, but our heroes seem to be holding on to their prime spot on the island. This ain’t their first rodeo, after all, and given how far she can reach her head down into her nest, she might already have some eggs in there, for all we know. She was at this operation long enough for me to get 7 pictures before she sat back down. Oh man, I sure hope that means 7 eggs!

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Meanwhile, on the river, I spotted the buffleheads again, who immediately made a beeline out of range, our goldeneye odd-couple, lots of geese and mallards, and 2 pair of wood ducks.

Here’s the best shot I have showing the 2 goldeneyes so you can see that there really are two of them, and one has a yellow tip on her beak while the other one doesn’t. The second picture is just nicer, and shows how crowded the best spots on the river can get, but the kid turned his head at the last second. Isn’t that always how it is, Dads?

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Here’s a shot of a wood duck drake and hen standing on the shore of the northern island, which a goose decided to photobomb at the last second.

Finally, as I headed out this morning, Anne asked if I was going to try to recreate that first photo from a year ago. Well, no, if only because it was not such a great picture, but I did manage to capture an image of another wood duck on the pond anyway. Ha!

And he’s gonna have to be your splash of color, too, because I didn’t see any new blossoms today. The snowdrops, crocuses, Siberian squill, and alpine squill are all still in bloom, so get out there and see them while you can!

PS. If you’d like your own pre-chilled park beer, a crew has been working on the Estabrook Park Beer Garden this week, and they say they are “currently targeting an open date in the first weeks of April.” See you there!

The wood ducks are back on the pond. again Yay! I think I saw two couples in the early morning light, and at least one couple appears to be getting quite comfortable in what I hope will be their summer home. Here they are up on the lawn as I sit on the park bench just a dozen feet away.

Here they are back in the water making more wood ducks…

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Finally, here they are back up on the lawn again. They were having a busy morning.

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Meanwhile, the geese population was down to just 3 couples, and they were all trying to get comfortable on the little island with sites only about a dozen feet apart. We’ll see how that goes.

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After all that excitement, I headed over to the river, and was rewarded for my effort. Here’s a muskrat having its breakfast. I first spotted it nibbling on something by the water, then watched it make two forays to grab more greens before returning each time to nibble on them at the water’s edge. Finally, I hope after it was full, it waded into the river and swam away.

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A little bit further north, I found the buffleheads napping with a goldeneye as a mallard glided past.

Later I realized there were two different goldeneyes, a female, with a light tip on her beak, and an “immature” with an all dark brown beak and eyes.

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There was even a male red-breasted merganser in the fray, which would bring our fowl count to six for the morning, but I didn’t manage to get a picture worth posting. Next time.

Lastly, here’s your splash of color.

That’s right, there were 11 Canada geese on the pond this morning, 5 couples and 1 optimist who is sure his big break is just around the corner. Or maybe he’s just a failure to launch still living with his folks. Either way, that’s up from 9 geese yesterday.

Our heroes are still staking out the southern tip of the island, but how this is all going to shake out for the rest of them is anybody’s guess.

Meanwhile the wood ducks have all taken off again, Mrs. Gadwall is still around, and Blondie and Dagwood have popped up from the river, although given how many drakes there are and how much they all look alike, perhaps I do better to name them Samantha and Darrin.

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Anyway, the scene on the river also appears to be holding steady with a slew of geese and mallards and still our diminutive bufflehead couple.

Finally, the rains last night have gotten the earthworms in a frisky mood, and here’s a pair making the best of the moment.

Long-time readers may remember when I encountered this last spring, I did not recognize what I was seeing, thought it was some odd-looking fishing lure, and tried to pick it up, only to cause the two hermaphrodites to immediately decouple and peristal back into their respective burrows. I had to resort to posting a picture I found on line, with credits of course, but now I have my own, and I managed to leave them in peace, or however they experience it.

Finally, here it is, your splash of color, a pretty little violet, probably Viola odorata, variously known as garden violet, English violet, florist’s violet, common violet, sweet violet, wood violet, march violet, sweet blue violet, and marsh violet.

Our top story this morning is the exciting return of the wood ducks to the pond in Estabrook Park. There were three drakes and two hens in all.

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The lighting was a little tricky this morning, but the drakes were looking resplendent nevertheless.

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In other news, the Canada goose situation continues to be an evolving story. When I first arrived at the pond this morning, there were nine (9!) of them on the water, and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen so many. Our heroes, who’ve been there since March 6, and who I hear have nested there for years, were having a heck of a time keeping all the interlopers at bay, despite a lot of honking and other heroic efforts.

I left them to sort it out amongst themselves while I went to check out the river, and when I returned, they had managed to get the crowd down to just six. One couple was on the western lawn, one couple was on the back (NNE) side of the island, and our heroes where back in their spot on the southern tip of the island. That’s still 200% more geese than the status quo last spring, but they seemed to have agreed to a truce for the moment, and everyone was peaceably going about their business.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Gadwall was also on the pond with several mallards, and one lone goldeneye hen was still on the river with a slew of mallards and geese. I didn’t see the buffleheads today.

The one other exciting spot, which I was not able to document, sadly, was the merlin quickly gliding over the wildflower meadow at tree-top level. Happily, a fellow amateur naturalist, Jim Kogutkiewicz, spotted it just yesterday a bit south along the river and posted a stunning picture on instagram, which I hope you check out. We of course don’t know if all these merlins are one-and-the-same bird, or even the one we saw in Estabrook back in January, but how many could there be, this far out of their range, right?

Finally, color continues to pop out of the ground, and for these, I’m going to go with alpine squill (Scilla bifolia), as opposed the the siberian squill we saw just yesterday, and whose blossoms face downward.

Well, by “eagle” I mean the female Canada goose on the pond in Estabrook, and by “landed” I mean assumed her throne, and by “her throne” I mean her nest on the island in the pond.

Finally, and not a moment too soon! There were 3 other pairs of geese on the pond this morning. Here’s the male warding off the boldest of them. Their conflicts over territory include many pauses for grooming, it seems.

Here’s a more heated moment.

Here’s one of those other couples discussion their next move.

Meanwhile, the mallards try to stay out of the way.

Until, that is, Mrs. Gadwall blithely glides past, but she quickly dissuaded them of having any interest in her.

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After all that excitement, I headed down to the river, but I don’t have much to report other than that the buffleheads are still there. I wonder if they’re going to stick around. It’s a long way to their breading grounds in northwest Canada, but they have been spotted in northeast Minnesota from time to time. Maybe these two aim to expand that in Wisconsin. They wouldn’t be the first visitors who found Wisconsin had just what they were looking for, right?

Since the pond had so much going on, I swung by one more time on may way home, and as I sat on the bench for a moment, several critters stopped by to say hi.

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Finally, there’s a new splash of color in the park, emerging from low on the side of the bluff, and it appears to be a Siberian squill (Scilla sibirica).

It was a delightful morning in the park, and there was surprisingly little going on. Not many visitors and no new critters.

The two pair of geese, a pair of mallards, and Mrs. Gadwall were all on the pond.

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The river is full of geese and mallards and one last goldeneye hen.

The red-bellied woodpeckers are still calling to each other like crazy along the river, and this female was willing to pose for a picture.

Finally, as I was heading home I accidentally startled Blondie and Dagwood, whom we haven’t seen in a few days, and they took off down river. I called after them that the lighting was no good that way, but they just kept going anyway. They don’t care about the lighting it seems.

Lastly, I found another park beer, but it was pretty old, and I’m guessing it’s past its prime.

I couldn’t find the wood ducks again this morning, neither on the river nor on the pond, and was making my way home empty-handed, when I stopped to check on the Cooper’s hawk nest I spotted under construction yesterday. Is I searched the treetops for it or the hawk itself, a bird watcher came by whom I see every now and then in the park or on the Oak Leaf Trail.

I said “hi Charles” and proceeded to tell him about what I was looking for, and he glanced up and said right away “well, there’s the hawk, right there.” Ha! It was in the tree right in front of me, and it turns out to be a red-tailed hawk, maybe even the same one as yesterday, but how had I not seen it?

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Anyway, it became annoyed that now even I could see it, so it took off, and I lost it in the trees. Not Charles, though. He quickly pointed out a little dark spot against the sky in a tree easily 150 yards away where it had perched. Uncanny.

So when I got home I googled “charles shorewood birds” and discovered that Charles is not just some shmuck like me walking though the park with a pair of binoculars. He’s Charles Hagner, “State Director of Bird City Wisconsin”, “former Editor-in-Chief of BirdWatching magazine”, and author of “American Birding Association Field Guide to Birds of Wisconsin“!

Holy Moly! No wonder he was able to spot a hawk in the tree right in front of us. Anyway, he seems like a super nice guy and never let on that he was a big-shot.

Okay, back to work. On the pond this morning, I did see the two pair of geese, about 3 mallard drakes and at least one hen, and our surprise visitor, Mrs. Gadwall, who seems to be in no rush to move on to her nesting grounds upstate.

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Finally, the other fun find of this morning was a mobile phone, and not a cheap one either, by the looks of it. It was lying face down on the mud along the river about a foot from the water.

I had gone out again once it had warmed up, since my first trip this morning was such a bust, but I didn’t see much new, and spent some time picking up litter left on the mudflats by the recent high water. As I was walking home, I reached for my phone, but it wasn’t in my pocket. I immediately panicked, of course, and hustled back down the the mud flats only to search in vain.

So I headed home in hopes that I had simply forgotten to put it in my pocket when I headed out, which I have done before, but that was sadly not the case this time. Happily, however, google has a nifty tool that let me lock it up tight, showed me that it was indeed down by the river, and even make it ring, all from the comfort of the laptop on my dining room table. I got Anne to wait at home and press the button to start the ringing in 10 minutes so that I had enough time to hurry back over there.

I arrived back by the river a little early and as I wandered around retracing my steps from earlier and wondering where would be the best place to stand to hear it ring, I finally spotted it. Apparently, as I had bent over to fetch some water bottles out of the river, it had slipped out of my unzipped jacket pocket, and I never noticed it!

PHEW!

Okay, one last dash of color from another maple tree this morning.

They’re back …. the wood ducks that is. I spotted my first pair on the river this morning just off the south shore of the northern island basking in the morning sun. Some of you long-time readers may recall that my very first post from the park was to announce that I had spotted wood ducks on the pond, back on March 26, 2020. Seems like a hundred years ago, eh?

Besides all the geese and mallards, I was surprised to see that the wood ducks were also accompanied by our old pals, the buffleheads, now that all the goldeneyes and mergansers seem to have moved on to colder waters up north.

Meanwhile, on the pond, a few mallards come and go, it appears that the second pair of geese is there to stay, the fifth wheel is gone, but the gadwall hen is still sticking around. Perhaps if the two pair of geese can keep the island between them, everyone will be happy. There’s no sign of nesting yet.

Lastly, as I reluctantly walked home, I noticed a large bird, looking like a raptor, towing a stick as it swooped up into a tree. Sure enough, once I got my binoculars out, it appears that a Cooper’s hawk is building a nest high up in an oak tree overlooking the bluff. It took off after a bit, and as I continued to look, I thought it came back to perch even closer. I soon realized that it was a completely different bird, a red tailed hawk, this time, if I had to guess. What are the odds of see that again, right?

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Anyway, I did my best to memorize where to look for the Cooper’s hawk nest, so I can check in on that and keep you posted.

The greening of Estabrook continues, perhaps slowed by the grey skies but undaunted.

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The geese at the pond have picked up a fifth wheel whom nobody seems to like.

There were three mallard drakes and one hen, and she rebuffed advances more than once.

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And the solo gadwall hen is still there doing her thing, mostly feeding and doing her best to blend into the background.

Not much to report from the river. I spotted one male common mergansers, one male goldeneye and a few females amongst all the mallards and geese. That is all.