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…
Finally, here they are back up on the lawn again. They were having a busy morning.
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.
Northern-most
Middle-most
Southern-most
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.
A little bit further north, I found the buffleheads napping with a goldeneye as a mallard glided past.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The lighting was a little tricky this morning, but the drakes were looking resplendent nevertheless.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Male red-winged blackbird
Mallard pair
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
Cooper’s hawk
Red-tailed hawk
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.
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.
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.
I didn’t get to the park until this afternoon and it was quiet, super quiet. The wind was calm, the sky was dark grey, hardly anyone was around, and many of the critters were taking a nap, like these two mallards beside the pond.
We’ve seen them there before, and I wonder how long they’ll keep it up as visitor traffic increases with nicer weather.
Not everyone was napping, though. There was a second swan couple on the pond, which I was very surprised to see, and even after a skirmish, neither pair seemed willing to budge. I can’t wait to see how this turns out.
Our gadwall hen was also still there, and she even seems to be getting more comfortable. Here she is showing off her white speculum feathers.
The situation was similar on the river. There are a lot of Canada geese jockeying for prime nesting sites and a bunch of mallards feeding along the shore. I didn’t see our new yellow mallard hen again today, and there were no mergansers, goldeneyes, or scaups, but I was pleasantly surprised to see the bufflehead couple again.
The wind was brisk out of the ESE this morning, so right off of Lake Michigan, and it felt like it. The cold snap was not slowing down this maple tree, however.
The 5 recent regulars were on the pond, the goose couple, the mallard couple, and the solo gadwall hen, but there was nobody new, so I let them be and headed over to the river, which is starting to recede a little bit, and so is not quite as brown and furious as it was last week.
Most of the ducks we’ve been seeing there in recent weeks appear to have moved on, and those left are mostly Canada geese and mallards now. I did spot a few outliers, and got all excited, but it turns out they are just a quartet of goldeneye hens and one greater scaup hen. None were diving, so that threw me off.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 
