The sun came up on a gorgeous morning, here in the Nutmeg State, and my sister and I did find an entrance to the fabulous Fresh Meadows Wildlife Sanctuary, just across the Mill River from my folks’ new place. We saw many of the same characters I had seen yesterday, but the star of the show had to be this red-shouldered hawk basking in the sun’s warm glow. I see that they do get spotted in Milwaukee, from time to time, but I have yet to see one there, so I’m glad for a backup location.

With pictures of a Cooper’s hawk and a red-shouldered hawk already “in the can,” it didn’t take long for a red-tailed hawk to show up, as if to ask “what about me?”

Finally, with tufted titmice aplenty, I figured I should practice taking their picture so that when the opportunity comes for me to do so in Estabrook, I don’t flub my shot.

I see it is supposed to cloud up by tomorrow morning, but the wind should be very light, so I’m gonna go looking for some waterfowl. Wish me luck!

It was rainy and foggy when the sun came up this morning out here in Cheshire, CT, so my sister and I went to breakfast with my mom and dad, and I pinned my hopes on this afternoon. As luck would have it, the sky did clear up after lunch, and I got my chance to take a look around outside the complex my folks moved into last fall.

There was a busy bird feeder a few doors away, and I was thrilled to see a tufted titmouse again. I’ve heard them a couple of times in the Milwaukee area, but I haven’t managed to get a picture of one there, yet. Just as soon as I managed this shot, however, a shape swooped in, and all the little birds scattered.

The shape turned out to be this Cooper’s hawk, which we do get to see in Estabrook year-round, and it perched in the middle of a nearby tree, but it must have been hungry, because it soon took another pass at the feeder.

Its next perch gave me a closer look, but by then, its advantage of surprise was long gone, so it took off again nearly as fast as it had swooped in.

I moved on, too, and around the next corner, I found this song sparrow perched on a fence post. It was just sitting there, not calling, and certainly not hunting, so I don’t know what it was up to, and I just took its picture. I did manage to see one a few times back home late into the fall, but not once since the deep freeze at the start of December.

Finally, I was fascinated to spot about a dozen black vultures soaring high over the nature preserve next door. The turkey vultures we get in Estabrook have long flown south for the winter, so it was a treat to find vultures toughing out the winter here.

The weather’s supposed to be a lot better tomorrow morning, so it will be interesting to see who’s out and about after the sun comes up.

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m traveling back to Connecticut today to see my folks, and I don’t expect to get any pictures until tomorrow. I don’t want to leave you in the lurch, however, so here are a few more highlights from 2025 that I didn’t manage to sneak in before the new year started.

An absolute favorite has got to be the three curious river otters who paused from their fishing to check me out on March 13, 2025. Then, as if seeing them in Estabrook for only the second time ever wasn’t enough, we had a hungry one visit again on August 8, 2025.

After many “false positives” I finally saw my first, for-sure, “raspberry red”, male purple finch on April 22, 2025.

Long-time readers may recall that I see vesper sparrows now and then at Anne’s mom’s place out in Waterford, but I finally found my first one in Estabrook, on April 7, 2025, and it happens to be the first one ever reported there.

Another bird that evaded me for years is the ovenbird, and I not only got to see one this year, on May 16, 2025, but I even had a second chance, just a few days later, to get a nicer picture, on May 22, 2025.

Finally, just when I thought we might be done with firsts for the year, my first yellow-billed cuckoo popped in to say “hi”, on October 3, 2025.

The weather forecast looks good for Cheshire on Wednesday, so I have a hope of finding some new content for you. Wish me luck!

It was a mild but gray morning in Estabrook Park, with temps near freezing and calm air, and we had a nice turn out for the weekly wildlife walk, but even five pairs of eyes struggled to find many birds today. Perhaps we’ve all come down with a bit of the post-holiday blues.

One of the birds that was still managing to go about its business was the white-throated sparrow, and here’s one picking berries from a bush beside the pond. I read that “white-throated sparrows are unable to produce yellow, so the birds depend on a diet rich in carotenoids—pigments manufactured mainly by plants—to provide this golden hue. Their fall and winter diet of seeds and fruit … give the sparrows a carotenoid boost.“

Another bird that needs carotenoids to help make its characteristic plumage is the American robin, and here’s one searching the bushes along the river for berries. They’ve been oddly scarce in Estabrook since the first of the year, so I was glad when we spotted at least a dozen today.

And that’s all I could scrounge up this morning. I’d like to say that I’ll try harder tomorrow, but I’m off to the east coast to see my folks again, and I probably won’t get back outside until Wednesday.

As promised, I joined the Milwaukee Birders this morning in their quest to “go find some birds,” and our first stop was the Windpoint Lighthouse in Racine County. There, we were lucky enough to get eyes on the purple sandpiper (Calidris maritima) that has had folks all atwitter lately. This is certainly a new bird for me, and I read that we need not be alarmed by its seeming predicament because they “breed on arctic tundra[, and] they spend winters on North Atlantic shores, farther north than any other shorebird,” so this scene appears to be right up their alley.

Next, we stopped by the bird feeder at Grant Park in hopes at getting a fresh glimpse of the evening grosbeak for the new year. There was little chance of that happening this morning, however, because there was a pair of Cooper’s hawks perched high in the trees above, and they may have been hoping for something along those same lines.

Finally, as far as the presentable pictures go, we moved a bit north in Grant Park to where screech-owls have been heard and spotted lately, and after a nice stroll through the woods, John Kasper found us this gorgeous creature. “Thanks, John!”

From there we continued north along the waterfront and spotted six bucks beside the road, a wild turkey, a mute swan, a hooded merganser, an American coot, and a pair of long-tailed ducks, but most of them were far beyond the reach of my gear, so you’ll just have to see them in your mind’s eye for now.

Thanks to Donna and Katie for putting together this tour of the lakefront, Donna providing transportation, and John for taking the lead once we were on foot.

I see that the winds will be light and the air will be seasonably warm tomorrow morning, so come on out, if you can, to help us find wildlife in Estabrook Park. We’ll start at 8am in the beer garden parking lot.

Seriously. The clouds were thick, so there were certainly no celestial bodies to see, and they tend to be pretty quiet anyway. There were no races, tournaments, or other events going on, and it was still cold enough to keep many regular visitors home, so there were hardly any people. I did see a few birds but no raptors and less than half the usual number of mallards and rock pigeons. I did hear a squirrel or two, but I’m not sure I actually saw a single wild mammal. It was a little weird.

Luckily, I didn’t get to finish up our look back at 2025, so let’s see some of the colorful, non-avian firsts we saw last year.

We had two stunning butterflies in quick succession, our first great spangled fritillary in the park on June 24,

and our first variegated fritillary east of the Mississippi on June 27.

It may look bland by comparison to the previous two, but I was very excited to see a Virginia creeper clearwing with its bushy tail, only our second ever clearwing moth.

We also saw our second ever saddlebags dragonfly, a gorgeous red saddlebags.

On the more venomous side, I was thrilled to spot our first ever rusty-patched bumble bee as it is the “first federally protected species of bumble bee, and first bee to be placed on the endangered species list.”

Finally, continuing the trend from pretty to scary, I’ll wrap this up with our first Arabesque orbweaver.

I read that tomorrow the Milwaukee Birders plan to “go find some birds,” and I hope to join them. With any luck, I’ll have something new and/or interesting to show you.

Whelp, the recent thaw is over, at least for now, and winter is back with blowing snow and freezing cold. Yippee!

The bigger surprise, for me and the two wildlife walkers who joined me this morning, was finding a pair of cedar waxwings looking for berries in the bushes around the pond. We’re well within their year-round range, but they must know of good berry sources elsewhere, because we don’t get to see much of them during the winter in Estabrook Park.

The next surprise was eventually finding eleven (11!) common mergansers on the river, two drakes and nine hens. Even better, they all lined up so I could get them in one shot. I’m sure that is a record for me.

That’s the whole show for today, however, but it is a huge improvement over the last couple of days, thank goodness. I see that the cold is forecast to deepen by tomorrow morning, but the wind should ease up a bit, and the sun might poke through the clouds, so I have a hope that this trend of improving pictures might continue. Keep your fingers crossed!