I don’t have a lot of time this morning, and it looks gray as heck out there again anyway, so let’s do a little year in review instead. Here are some of my favorite pictures from 2021.

Nothing brightens up a gray day in January like a male northern cardinal on sumac, eh?

But a thrush on sumac with snow and a blue sky in February ain’t too shabby either.

Here’s a raft of common mergansers, and one with a fresh catch, from March.

And a hairy woodpecker from April.

A robin feeding its chicks from May. What a thrill it was to get to see that whole process unfold.

One of a pair of North American river otters I spotted hunting goslings in June. (It still gives me goosebumps that I got to witness that scene and that this picture came out as good as it did. Phew!)

A great horned owl, also in June, who looked like it was hunting ducklings but eventually just took a bath.

A great blue heron picking a new fishing spot in July.

A mallard hen with her ducklings on the pond also in July.

A green heron fishing on the pond in August.

An indigo bunting also from August.

A great egret fishing in the river in September.

The osprey who visited us for a couple of weeks in October.

One of the bucks strutting his stuff in November.

Our female belted kingfisher who’s been fishing the lower river all December.

Of course, I am leaving out dozens of critters that could have just as easily made this list: warblers, vireos, hawks, eagles, goslings, wood ducks, the cuckoo, chipmunks, squirrels, rabbits, muskrats, the mink, raccoons, beaver, butterflies, dragonflies, snapping turtles, etc., etc.

In any case, it has been an absolute treat for me to see all these beautiful creatures right here in the little park across the street and share them with you. Thanks for coming along for the ride, and see you all next year.

PS. Some dates above are approximate because of reasons.

The exciting news is that we have new arrivals in the park again, this time a foursome of female common mergansers, the likes of which we haven’t seen since March. Here are the two that swam closest together.

Meanwhile, the mallards continue going about their business and achieved some nice duck density in this image.

Our two “love birds”, the pair of red-tailed hawks, appear to be together enough to perch in the same tree, which is still an unusual sight for me.

Finally, another blue bird has stopped in or one of the trio from a couple of weeks ago hasn’t moved on yet. Either way, a pretty sight to see, eh?

Lastly, this recent cold snap has created some interesting kinetic sculptures on the river.

Here’s a perfect little disk slowly spinning in place right below the falls.

Brrr. It was colder than it looked this morning, and I should have checked the “real feel” temperature before heading out. My hands are still pretty stiff from the cold as I try to type this.

Anyway, it seemed as though the big animals saw my post yesterday and took offense or took pity on me. Either way, they were about all I saw today.

Right off the bat, as I crossed the parkway on my way to the river, I spotted this deer, among the biggest mammals in the park, just resting on the grass by the edge of the woods. I read that our bucks shed their antlers “around January,” so she’s likely a doe.

On the river, I saw our pair of buffleheads again, foraging this time, and a few mallards, but the best pose of the morning came from this herring gull just below the falls.

On my way back south, I was pleasantly surprised to find our blue heron, certainly the biggest wading bird, if not the biggest bird overall, intently fishing just below the abandoned bridge abutments.

And that’s about it for the critters. It was a pretty quiet morning. To round things out instead, since we still don’t have a snow cover, here are some pretty maple leaves frozen in the ice.

I see the forecast is for snow on Saturday, and I for one am looking forward to that change of scenery. Keep your fingers crossed!

Despite a few nice little breaks, the gray skies are hanging around like a Gloomy Gus this month. Even the buffleheads, the smallest diving ducks in North America, and whom I usually find hard at work, were sleeping in this morning.

This gray squirrel isn’t even the smallest squirrel in the park, let alone North America, and it’s just wondering why I’m including it in this list. The answer, little buddy, is that the diminutive chipmunk, who has been hard to find since the fall, and who momentarily perched on the log right between us, took off the instant I reached for my camera.

Finally, here’s a winter wren, one of North America’s smallest birds, foraging amongst the ice covered rocks and roots at the water’s edge.

Oh, sure. There were a bunch of geese, some mallards, a few gulls, and even a couple of crows on the upper river, but none of them wanted their picture taken today.

I didn’t see the goldeneye from yesterday, so maybe it is off in search of other goldeneyes. Here’s hoping he finds some and brings them all back here, eh?

Despite the weather, or perhaps because of it, it was quite a nice morning in Estabrook. I didn’t get there especially early, but I still got to make the first human footprints in a lot of the fresh sloppy snow lying on many parts of the river trail.

Things were pretty quiet on my way north, and I didn’t see much more than scenery and this hungry gray squirrel.

At the far north end, though, at least one male common goldeneye has finally arrived from Canada, and he was looking splendid. Last winter, they tended to stick together, so if there were more, I probably would have seen them. Here’s hoping they’re not far behind, right?

The bufflehead pair was just off the southern tip of the southern island again, and here’s the male tilting his head just right to show off some iridescence for us.

The woodpeckers were out, and just as I was about to take this hairy‘s picture, it opted to make it an action shot. I had my shutter nice and slow for the low light, but I think you can still get the gist of it.

At the falls, this herring gull just about dared me to take its picture, and who am I to say no.

At the south end, a couple of our favorite anglers were working the eastern shore, and here’s the kingfisher.

And here’s the blue heron.

As you can imagine, I wasn’t the only one making footprints in the snow, and here are a bunch that appear to be from squirrels.

And here’s a no-nonsense set from a good sized canid that I followed for nearly half the park without any sign of an accompanying human, so I’m guessing they’re from our wily coyote, making its morning rounds.

I also caught glimpses of prints the looked like rabbit, raccoon, and deer.

Finally, here’s just some interesting ice on the river after last night’s wet snow.

As dawn broke this morning, the sky looked like it was going to be clear, so I hustled out the door soon after I noticed, and it didn’t take long for that to pay off. I had just crossed Wilson Drive, stepped into the park, and hadn’t even crossed the Oak Leaf Trail yet when a good Samaritan called for my attention from across the street. When I turned around, he pointed out this gorgeous red fox (Vulpes vulpes) on the front steps of Kingo Lutheran Church. By the time I aimed my camera in its direction, it was already trotting down the sidewalk, and so this is the best picture I could get with what little light I had.

Meanwhile, back in the park proper, things were pretty quiet, though the kingfisher was making her usual calls as she fished along the lower river.

And there was a flock of geese on the water above the falls making a racket again, but I couldn’t spot any buffleheads among them today.

Finally, things were so quiet, otherwise, that I even swung by the pond, to see if anyone was home. It was completely frozen over, but the bushes around it were full of little birds, and here’s a sparrow trying to keep warm before the sun shines in. The little bit of yellow above its eye makes me think that it’s a “tan-striped” form of the white-throated sparrow.

Look who I spotted hustling home this morning with the beaver equivalent of a vegan holiday feast. Fresh willow bark, and just in time, baby, just in time!

Meanwhile, our favorite blue heron was back to fishing again and even farther south than yesterday.

Finally, one of the little red squirrels was wondering what the heck I’m still doing in the park this morning. Don’t worry, little guy, I’m on my way home for brunch right now.

Lastly, my entire staff and I, here at Estabrook Park Productions, wish you and yours the best this holiday season. May Saint Mic’s promise come true, and even if you can’t get what you want, you do get what you need.

The grey skies and mild temperatures continued this morning, and we even had some fog for icing on the cake, but I had my rounds to make, so off to the park I went.

I didn’t see much more than mallards along the river until I reached the falls, where the slow and wide water just above them was full of Canada geese. Here’s a quartet standing on the ice just below the southern island.

There were easily 4 dozen birds out there, and I figured I should give them a scan to see if anyone was hiding among them. Sure enough, look who finally decided to grace us with his magnificent presence: a bufflehead drake, at long last! Ha!

I have no way to know if the hen with him is the same one we’ve been seeing for weeks, but we can certainly hope she is, and that her patience has been finally rewarded, right?

I didn’t see anything else remarkable at the north-end, and on my way south, I opted to hug the river again just because, and here’s my reward. Beside the mild rapids after the river turns to flow south again, our favorite blue heron was back to fishing.

I even watched it catch a fish, when I was still on its north side and shooting through a gap in some sticks. It had to jump into the water to get it, unfortunately, and ended up no longer lined up with that gap, so my autofocus couldn’t deal, and all the pictures of that exciting scene are blurry. Darn.

Instead, here’s a tranquil look upstream as it resumed fishing from the edge of the iceshelf.

Finally, for a little color to brighten the mood, here’s another look at the nuthatch from Wednesday.

I can’t wait to see who arrives tomorrow.

The cloud cover was back, and warmer air came with it. I saw the trio of deer again, but it was still too dark for my camera to work this morning. Instead, here’s another picture from yesterday morning when there was a little bit more light.

Along the river, I heard the kingfisher again, but I couldn’t get a good picture, so here’s a better one from yesterday. She had just come out of the water after a dive that appeared to bear no fruit. Recall that the air was 19°F at the time. She’s one tough little bird, eh?

I found this little red squirrel munching on a walnut just like his big grey cousins do, which is something I haven’t seen before. By that time, there was enough light, so this really is a picture from this morning.

Here he is again suggesting that I keep moving on up the trail. They’re small but feisty!

I didn’t see anything else worth a picture until the north end, where there were a bunch of house finches in the bushes at the water’s edge. Here’s a male, …

and here’s a female.

There were also a couple of golden-crowned kinglets, but they never hopped out of the bushes enough for me to get a shot. Instead, this junco was much more obliging.

The surprise for me, though, was that while I was trying to focus on all these little birds at my feet, a pair of red-tailed hawks were having an animated conversation in the tall trees across the river. They never came out in the clear, and they didn’t give me a lot of time, so this is all I managed, but it was fun to see two of them together like that. Another new sight for me.

Lastly, on a more-colorful note, here’s a goldfinch from yesterday who appears to be eating the tiny leaf buds off the little tree it is perched on.

I sure hope the tree has budgeted for that!

As many of you probably already knew, yesterday was the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year, and we were supposed to have exactly 9 hours (plus 0 minutes and 0 seconds) between sunrise and sunset here in Shorewood. Today, I read that we get 3 whole additional seconds of sunshine, and that’s a step in the right direction, so I’ll take it!

This morning the sun rose on crystal-clear skies, bracingly-cold air, and a stiff breeze out of the west-northwest. This could make for some nice pictures, if anyone came out to play, and I am happy to report that many did.

I had barely crossed the Oak Leaf Trail to enter the park when I spotted three deer, perhaps the trio from Saturday, crossing the path up ahead, so I did my best to hurry up while making it look like I wasn’t moving. By the time I got them in sight again, it appears that I could have taken my time because two of them were busy tending to their tarsal glands.

Once they got that taken care of, they went to work cleaning up the fallen crabapples littering the grass.

Along the river, I could still feel the breeze, and even the chickadees were keeping close to the ground.

By the time I approached the falls, the sun was finally shining down into the river valley, and the open water above the falls was chock full o’ geese and mallards.

With the sun finally warming things up a bit, the woodpeckers were out in force, and here’s a diminutive female downy,…

a comparatively hulking male hairy, who managed to blink for the camera, …

and a just-right-sized female red-bellied.

Finally, just as I was crossing back over the Oak Leaf Trail on my way out of the park, I spotted this nuthatch to square up the foursome.

Play Ball!