After a short warmup following the snow yesterday, it cooled back down, we got another 3-4 inches overnight, temps are back down into the teens, and it has continued to snow lightly all day. Plus, I see we are not due to get above freezing for the rest of the month, so winter is back and back for a while. Nice.

By crazy coincidence, here’s a face we haven’t seen since winter first got off to such a great start back at the beginning of December. In case you’ve forgotten after all this time, this is a hermit thrush, and the northern edge of their winter range is about 300 miles south of here, so it is a bit unexpected to see one, if not exactly “rare”. You probably can’t tell from the image because I cropped it so closely, but it’s sitting in the gap under a fallen tree trunk.

The rest of the critters were similarly seeking shelter from the snow, and here’s a female downy woodpecker working on the bottom side of a branch by the pond.

The pair of goldeneye hens were still on the river, but no drake has joined them yet, and here’s another image from the nice viewing I had yesterday. They dive for their food in 32°F water all winter long, so snow doesn’t seem to faze them.

I see we’re due for less snow, more cold, and about the same cloud cover tomorrow morning, so nobody’s gonna be out basking in the sun, but at least they shouldn’t be hiding from the snow. Time’ll tell, eh?

The promised snow did arrive this morning, and it kept me out of Estabrook Park till 10:30am. Happily, not all the critters were done with their mornings by then, and I was able to see a few. Here are the ones I managed to capture on film:

A mature bald eagle over the far riverbank. They are not even considered “infrequent” on ebird, I noticed for the first time today, let alone “rare”, so let’s hope that’s really as good a thing as it sounds.

A male red-bellied woodpecker picking sumac seeds from a bunch over the pond.

A dark-eyed junco bathing in the stream that flows from the pond to the river. The air was just above freezing, after all.

One of the two goldeneye hens on the river below what’s left of the falls.

I see it’s supposed to be cold, cloudy, and windy tomorrow morning, so maybe that will entice a goldeneye drake to fly up from the lake for a visit. One can dream, right?

It was a gorgeous, if cool, morning in Estabrook Park, with even nicer weather than predicted. The critters, however, must have had something else on their minds, because they were not in a cooperative mood today.

For example, this is the best look a fox sparrow on the island in the pond would let me have. Boy, it would have made a beautiful picture, with the sun shining like that, if it had only come out of the bramble for a second. Oh well. Partial looks are better than no looks, right?

Speaking of partial looks, this white breasted nuthatch, in an oak tree beside the pond, really took that to the extreme, especially compared to their favorite pose. At least it gave me an excuse to get some of that blue sky on film.

Finally, and this came even earlier than yesterday, here’s a second look at the red squirrel from yesterday after it had retrieved that walnut and got to work on it. I’m not sure I even laid eyes on a single red or gray squirrel at all today. Sheesh!

I see that we’re due for some more snow overnight and a bit of a warmup, so maybe the critters will be too distracted by the change in scenery to worry about lil’ ol’ me.

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ll be sitting a lot today, in cars, airports, and airplanes, so we have to go back to the archives for pictures. Plus, I did a terrible job of reviewing the amazing sights we saw in 2025, so here’s a look back at some highlights from Jordan.

When we got to the Dead Sea, I was thrilled to get another chance to see common hoopoes. We have seen hoopoes before, in Malawi, which I believe would make them African common hoopoes, but since I read that Jordan is technically on the Asian continent, perhaps these are Eurasian common hoopoes. I did ask, but it wouldn’t say.

A little less exotic-looking, but still dramatic with a black head and white eye-ring are the white-spectacled bulbuls (Pycnonotus xanthopygos).

I’m always fascinated by sunbirds, who have evolved to play the role of hummingbirds in Eurasia and Africa, and we’ve seen them before, in Malawi and Comoros, but here’s my first Palestine sunbird (Cinnyris osea).

Another bird we saw first in Comoros, is the bee-eater, specifically the Madagascar bee-eater, but in Jordan we got to see the blue-cheeked bee-eater (Merops persicus).

We have to go back further to find our first lapwing, to South Holland where I learned that there is such a bird as a northern lapwing, and Jordan provided an alternative once again in the form of this spur-winged lapwing (Vanellus spinosus) at the fabulous Aqaba Bird Observatory.

We get martins, the purple variety, right in our own backyard, at Lakeshore State Park, but of course, the ones in Jordan have evolved to thrive in the desert, so here’s a pale crag-martin (Ptyonoprogne obsoleta) at Wadi Rum.

Finally, a visit to Jordan just wouldn’t be complete without seeing its national bird, the Sinai rosefinche (Carpodacus synoicus), and here’s one at Wadi Rum. Thanks again to Anne for making this whole trip possible, and if you ever get the chance to visit Jordan yourself, I hope you jump at it. We found it to be just wonderful.

If things go well today, I should be back in Estabrook tomorrow morning, and I see it is forecast to be windy there, so who knows what I’ll see, but I’ll be sure to let you know.

This morning was jammed full of doctor’s appointments for my folks, so I didn’t get out to look for wildlife until after lunch. I went straight to the Fresh Meadows Wildlife Sanctuary across the river, but by then, it seems, most of the critters were already down for their naps, so the sightings were few and far between.

Near the end of my walk, however, I did find this gorgeous creature, a red-tailed hawk, who appeared to be getting an early start to hunting its dinner. As you can see, we were having a beautiful blue-sky day, and I was able to get the sun at my back, so the lighting was perfect.

And that was the one good picture I was able to scrounge up this afternoon. Thus, with so much room to fill, here’s one more look at the wigeon drake from yesterday at Hannover Pond.

And that’s the whole show for today, I’m afraid. Tomorrow, I travel back to Milwaukee, which will take most of the day, so I highly doubt that I’ll have anything new for you, and I’ll dig up a few more highlights from 2025 instead.

In other news, I’ll be showing pictures at the Friends of Estabrook Annual Meeting, at 7pm on Wednesday, January 28, in the Blatz Pavilion at Lincoln Park. In previous years, I was able to borrow a projector from work or use the one brought by the main presenter, but neither seem to be an option this year. Thus, if you know of a projector that I can borrow for that evening and that takes HDMI from a laptop, please let me know.

My sister and I went out looking for more open water on the old Farmington Canal this morning, but we completely struck out. The pond where we’ve seen river otters, green herons, and cormorants, was still completely iced over. So, we checked out Hannover Pond again after lunch, and before we even got there, we spotted this pretty face on the side of the road. It’s a turkey vulture, and it must have heard me gushing about the black vultures yesterday.

When we finally did reach the pond, I was stunned to find another odd duck, two of them in fact, this pair of American wigeons. We’ve seen them in Estabrook, but these are my sister’s first ever and my first in Connecticut. Yippee!

While working on getting a good wigeon shot, I spotted yet another odd duck dabbling at the far shore. They’re not quite as easy to see, but those are green-winged teals, which are also a first ever for Deb and a first in Connecticut for me. Holy Moly!

Not to be forgotten, the gadwall drake was still there, and here’s a new look.

Not all the action was out on the water, and there was a small raptor mixing it up with all the fish crows that congregate there. At first, I thought it was a Cooper’s hawk, because of how it looked in flight, but once it perched, I could see that it was a Merlin, and another first for Deb.

The merlin didn’t stay perched on the branch for long, but was soon back in the air playing “chase me, chase you” with the crows, and as I was trying my hardest to capture some of that action, a red-tailed hawk drifted over the pond. Unbelievable! It was chaos in the skies! This is the best action shot I managed.

Finally, here’s a pretty nice look at just the hawk.

We’ve got a lot of appointments tomorrow, starting in the morning, so I’m not sure when I’ll get to for a walk, but if and when I do, I’ll be sure to let you know what I see.

Well, the snow I had expected did not arrive this morning, mostly because I was checking the forecast for Shorewood instead of for Cheshire, where I am presently located. Thus, it was no problem for my sister and me to go out looking for wildlife today, and this time, we really did go looking for waterfowl.

We checked Broad Brook Reservoir first, which has been very fruitful in the past, and we were quite surprised to find it still completely frozen over. The next stop was Hannover Pond, and there we finally found some open water. Beside the mute swans, Canada geese, and mallards, I was happy to find common mergansers, which my sister did not remember seeing before. There were at least four hens and four drakes, and here’s one of the latter.

The big surprise, for me at least, was spotting this handsome devil standing on the ice amongst the ring-billed and herring gulls. For those of you who don’t remember, or who were not yet along for the ride, this is an aptly-named black-backed gull, similar to the one we saw in South Holland, a couple of years ago, but this one is a “great” (Larus marinus), while the Dutch one was a “lesser” (Larus fuscus).

Another treat was spotting this quartet of hooded mergansers, which we have yet to see in Estabrook this winter. The three drakes were all doing their best to impress the hen, but nothing seemed to be working today. Maybe it’s just too early in the year. “Don’t give up hope yet, guys!”

My sister was especially thrilled to find a bald eagle, who looked a little wet. It soon flew off, and Deb tracked it to a tree not too far off where another eagle was perched. Perhaps they are the pair that nest over at the reservoir, and they had just come to the pond to check the open water buffet.

The next big surprise was finding this gadwall drake on the Quinnipiac River, which flows out of the pond toward New Haven harbor. We’ve seen at least one drake in Estabrook over the winter, but this is my first Connecticut gadwall. Woo Hoo!

Finally, we took a peek at the little pond in the old Farmington Canal, which I thought might also have some open water. It did, and there was one goose and a dozen mallards taking advantage of it, but the bigger surprise was spotting at least 60 (yes, 5 full dozen!) black vultures nearby in the trees, on the ground, and even bathing in what is left of the Farmington Canal. They are large birds, so it was quite the show. Here’s one who had just hopped up onto a branch at about eye-level to start drying off. Doesn’t it have a beautiful brown eye?

I’m not sure what our schedule is for tomorrow, so I don’t know when I’ll get out to look for more, but I’ll do my best.

I never did make it to much open water this morning, where I had hoped to find some waterfowl, but I did make it into the nature preserve next to my folks’ place again, where I found several new faces for the year.

Before we get there, however, the song sparrow that was on a fencepost a couple of days ago was in a prominent perch again this morning, as though it was keeping watch over its territory. “Good luck, Buddy!”

Once I got into the woods across the river, the first pleasant surprise was spotting my first yellow-bellied sapsucker of the new year, a female. Unlike Estabrook, which is just “fly-over territory” for them, it appears that we are in their “nonbreeding” or “year-round” range here, depending on your ability to distinguish two similar pastel shades of blue.

The sapsucker was quickly followed by another fun winter sight, this male northern flicker. The official map makes it look like both locations are in their “year-round” range, but my experience has been that they definitely clear out of Estabrook for the winter.

The woodpeckers were nice, of course, but the biggest treat of the morning has to be a little bunch of eastern bluebirds. I only saw one, at first, but then there was a second, and at least a third. Here’s a male, who really made me work for this shot, …

and here’s a female, who gave me several nice poses. We do get to see them during the winter in Estabrook, but very infrequently, and not yet this winter, so it’s great to get a glimpse to tide us over till spring.

As I was following the bluebirds, they eventually retired to the top of a tree, and then the tree was suddenly full of birds. At first, I thought they were all bluebirds, but I was eventually able to get eyes on some that clearly weren’t. Instead, they were cedar waxwings. I have seen them as recently as December in Estabrook, but I sure don’t mind getting another look in January.

Finally, the sunlight and blue sky, which you can see in some of the pictures above, didn’t last long, so this white-throated sparrow, which we have been seeing in Estabrook all winter, got a nice moody shot.

The forecast for tomorrow calls for snow all morning, so I have no idea what picture-taking opportunities might come up, and you’ll just have to watch this space.

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!