Yesterday, long-time reader Dan stopped by, and we went on a field trip down the west side of the river to North Ave and back up the east side, about 3 miles round trip in the fabulous Milwaukee River Greenway. I brought my camera, just in case, and am sure glad I did, but let’s chalk these images up to Dan, who spotted the subjects first anyway, so we can enjoy them as guest photos even though they’re technically not from Estabrook Park.

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They are, of course, in the order Dan spotted them, a few nearly-mature Canada geese, a deerlet still wearing its spots, and a baby robin who can fly if it needs to but seemed to prefer not. I don’t know if those are our goslings from the pond, but let’s suppose that they are, and I sure made another bird parent upset with me, so that’s twice in one day. I’d better wear a hat outside for a while, just to be on the safe side.

Meanwhile, back in Estabrook Park proper, there has been a whole lot of blossoming going on.

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From left to right, we’ve got:

• Foxglove beard-tongue, foxglove beardtongue, talus slope penstemon, or white beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis),
• white wild indigo or white false indigo (Baptisia leucantha), and
• wild garlic or meadow garlic (Allium canadense),

all growing on the steep slope from the beer garden down to the river.

There’s also Solomon’s seal and its impostors:

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from left to right

• Solomon’s seal, smooth Solomon’s-seal, or great Solomon’s-seal, (Polygonatum biflorum), which has taken forever to open and has leaves that look just like the
• false Solomon’s seal, Solomon’s plume, treacleberry, feathery false lily of the valley, or false spikenard (Maianthemum racemosum), and
• little false Solomon’s seal, star-flowered Solomon’s seal, starry Solomon’s seal, simply false Solomon’s seal, star-flowered lily-of-the-valley, or starry false lily of the valley (Maianthemum stellatum).

The latter two have already blossomed in the park weeks ago.

Want a little more color? We’ve got that, too.

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Here we have, from left to right:

• bittersweet nightshade, field bindweed, bittersweet, bitter nightshade, blue bindweed, Amara Dulcis, climbing nightshade, fellenwort, felonwood, poisonberry, poison flower, scarlet berry, snakeberry, trailing bittersweet, trailing nightshade, violet bloom, or woody nightshade (Solanum dulcamara) growing in various locations. Yikes, that’s a lot of aliases, and some of them don’t sound so good, but even the Village of Shorewood lists it as a noxious weed and invasive species, so maybe that’s why.
• wild rose, smooth rose, meadow rose, or prairie rose (Rosa blanda) growing at the bottom of the bluff below the beer garden, and
• common self-heal, heal-all, woundwort, heart-of-the-earth, carpenter’s herb, brownwort, or blue curls (Prunella vulgaris), of which the Pedia of Wik reports “self-heal is edible: the young leaves and stems can be eaten raw in salads; the plant in whole can be boiled and eaten as a potherb; and the aerial parts of the plant can be powdered and brewed in a cold infusion to make a beverage.” Furthermore “the plant is considered by the Chinese to ‘change the course of a chronic disease’; is commonly used for sore throats and halitosis; and is one of the main ingredients of popular commercial Chinese herbal tea;” so there’s that. It is starting to blossom in the lawn south of the pond.

That’s probably enough names and traits for now. Remember, this will all be on the quiz scheduled for next Tuesday.

Yikes it was a cold morning for June: 50°F, and the wind made if feel like 45°F. I had to break out a fuzzy hat, and maybe that’s what set off these red-winged blackbirds.

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I was just walking around the pond on the paved path, minding my own business, and they were simply not having it! Besides all the shouting and glaring, there was a bunch of hovering just above me, which I found too mesmerizing even to think of taking a picture. Plus, I was worried about aerial projectiles, air-to-ground missiles, if you will.

Anyway, when I stopped by again on my way back south, they couldn’t care less, so at least I wasn’t too close to their nest or something. Maybe it’s the Stanley logo on the hat instead of Milwaukee Tool.

Meanwhile, the bugs were all still snug in their beds. Luckily, I’ve accumulated a couple of nice-looking bug pictures over the last couple of days that I’d better get out of the queue before they get too old.

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First are these pair of common whitetail dragonflies (Libellula lydia). You may recall the male from Wednesday, on the left. He was enjoying the pavement again, but this time he allowed me a slightly clearer picture. Then I spotted what looks like a female, or so I thought, on the sand at the southern playground striking a similar pose. It turns out, according to the fine anonymous contributors at the Pedia of Wik, that:

“females have a brown body and a different pattern of wing spots, closely resembling that of female twelve-spotted skimmer.“

So that guy on the right above is an immature male common whitetail. As it turns out, I also managed to record a dragonfly that fits the female description:

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But this one, on the right, truly is a female twelve-spotted skimmer, I believe. Man, it’s all so confusing! I wonder how even they manage to keep it straight.

Speaking of confusion, our next bug, which looks like a giant mosquito, is actually a crane fly, “a common name referring to any member of the insect family Tipulidae.”

“Despite their alarming appearance, crane flies neither bite (fore end) nor sting (nether end) (though an ovipositor may look like a stinger),” but the parts that fascinates me are the “two tiny, stemmed knobs called haltare on their thorax,” which are “a vestigial second pair of wings … used for balance,” says the self-described Bug Lady at UWM. Wild, eh?

I’ve got some nice new flower pictures, too, but we’re nearing the end of my attention span, so I’ll just have to save those for the next morning when I come up empty.

Lastly, for those of you just joining us, welcome aboard. If you haven’t been keeping up on the website, I want to point out the big news from yesterday is the launching of our fundraising calendar project. The only detail for sure so far is that we’re doing a calendar, and the rest remains to be sorted out. If you have an opinion about it, I’d love to hear it, and if you know someone who might be interested, please forward them this link: signsoflifeinestabrookpark.net

It was another cool morning, but maybe too cool for some critters. There was not a lot going on. Oh sure, the squirrels and rabbits were going about their business, and robins where everywhere, but the pond was empty until one female wood duck flew in, there were no deer to fear, and I haven’t seen the mallard ducklings since their big debut Tuesday morning. I hope they’re okay, wherever they are.

Luckily for us, there was plenty to see yesterday afternoon. Take this stunning male black swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes), for instance, checking to see if the dame’s rocket blossoms west of the southern soccer fields have any nectar to offer.

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Or how about this red spotted purple (Limenitis arthemis) along a path by the river? Much more pleasing to the eye than the chrysalis we saw by the pond back on June 4, eh? Yes, I realize that it looks mostly black and blue, but I don’t name them, I just look them up online like an amateur. Check out how well it matches this picture, though.

By the way, the Pedia of Wik reports:

“The red-spotted purple butterfly, also known as the subspecies L. arthemis astyanax, is a well known Batesian mimic. The palatable red-spotted purple mimics the unpalatable pipevine swallowtail (Battus philenor) with its overall dark wings with bright iridescent blue along the hind wings.“

Note that, even though I managed not to capture the distinctive swallowtail, or lack thereof, that would make identification easier, you can still see that there is no little pattern of bright spots on the head behind the eyes that the pipevine swallowtail has.

If you’re in the mood for some warmer colors, instead, perhaps this red admiral (Vanessa atalanta) will do the trick. Admittedly, the outside cover looks a little dusty, but the inside? Ooh la la!

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Continuing with the earth tones, we’ve got this little guy, a silver-spotted skipper (Epargyreus clarus), on a staircase landing just above the river.

I’d better stop there. You’re probably bored, and who knows when I’ll see something worth photographing again.

Finally, I am thrilled to announce the start of our calendar fundraiser project for Friends of Estabrook Park. The idea came from long-time reader, Anne’s mom, Joanne, who simply asked “are you going to make a calendar?” Genius, right?

Anyway, the idea, as you can probably guess, is to pick 12 pictures taken in the park that might look not bad when we blow them up, contract with somebody to print up a bunch of calendars, sell them at a huge profit, and then donate all the proceeds.

The Friends of Estabrook Park board voted to approve the idea last evening, so now we get to come up with all the details, such as which pictures to use, which holidays to include, how to handle the money, etc., for approval at the next board meeting.

I’ve started a new page to post these details as they become available. If you happen to have a calendar printer sitting idle in your basement, just want to get your order in now, or anything in between, shoot me a line at my email address, cleverly disguised on the contact page.

Man! What a super deluxe morning. The air was calm, cool, and crisp, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, but let’s get right to the action! Several Baltimore orioles took exception to where a crow had perched itself, and they expressed their displeasure with great enthusiasm.

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The crow stuck it out for quite a while, but eventually took off, and I suspect left without what he or she came for.

Speaking of breakfast, Ol’ Blue was back at the pond, and I didn’t startle him this time, so he definitely did not fly away hungry.

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Oh, and FYI, you can click on an image to turn these galleries into a slideshow to see one full-sized, and slightly blurrier, image at a time.

Finally, the mammals were very friendly this morning…

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The young deer nearly walked right up to me, as I tried to explain that I didn’t have anything it could eat and asked if I could take a picture instead. The squirrel carefully explained to the rabbit that it was sitting in the wrong spot. “He won’t be able to get an image of the two of us in portrait orientation to go in a gallery with the deer picture he already has.” The rabbit answered “don’t worry, he’s still got the lens cap on.” Sheesh! Everybody’s a critic.

The ducklings, fresh off their hot debut yesterday, where nowhere to be found this morning. Nowhere that I looked, anyway. Mallards and wood ducks were on the pond, and I did startle a great blue heron, for which I am very sorry, but he did get a nice send off from a red-wing blackbird for his troubles.

Which reminds me of a fascinating phenomenon I witnessed yesterday. We’ve all seen the exciting aerial combat of little birds chasing off bigger birds, but yesterday I saw a rabbit chasing a crow across the middle parking lot, I kid you not. I was too stunned even to think of taking a picture. Perhaps the crow was stunned, too.

Rabbits weren’t the only critters I saw scampering across the parking lot either. I’ve got a shot of this cutie running, but just before it ducked into the woods, it posed long enough for me to zoom, focus, and frame this nicer one.

There must have been something about the asphalt yesterday, because this guy just couldn’t get enough of it. Sure, we’d all rather see him delicately clinging to some bright green reed with a blurry bright blue pond in the background, but sometimes I just gotta shoots ’em where I sees ’em. Anyway, he’s an adult male common whitetail dragonfly (Plathemis lydia), and he wouldn’t let me get any closer.

This morning, for reasons I may never understand, must have been crayfish morning in the northeast corner of the pond because I’ve never seen one in the water before, and this morning I counted four at the surface within a few feet of each other, and this one was the most photogenic.

They were all quite alive and kicking, too, as they readily demonstrated the second I took a step too close.

Plenty of other little guys were out and about this morning as well. In my expert opinion, they are, from left to right, a spider, a snail, and some kind of little worm-like larva hanging from a silk thread.

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Oh, what the heck. Since I’m loading this thing up with pictures today, I might as well show some flowers, too, right?

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They appear to be, from left to right, Shining Ladies’ Tresses aka Yellow Lipped Ladies’ Tresses (Spiranthes lucida), a native orchid, right by the pond, a yellow flag iris (Iris pseudacorus) right beside the river (after I told Anne that they would never look photogenic beside the river), and Woodland forget-me-not (Myosotis sylvaticum or M. sylvatica). The latter two, I am sad but feel compelled to report, are both described as invasive species here and here.

Finally, the reader picture of the week is sent in by me because I found a gorgeous eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) (not the common yellow swallowtail (Papilio machaon) I had originally thought) willing to pose for a picture at last, just not quite in the park. It was on the flowers right in front of my building, which is just across Wilson Drive from the park, and ain’t it a beauty? Special shout out to Lois for making sure our gardens always look so tasty. It flew off several times, but always came back for more.

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Well, that’s more than usual, and I hope you were at least able to scroll through all the pictures. Let’s hope I left something to see for tomorrow, eh?

I got out a little earlier this morning, and I’m sure glad I did because I got to enjoy this spectacle of Mrs. Mallard taking her new ducklings on what might be their first tour of the pond. The light was still low, and they were always moving so my camera struggled to capture even this image, but I think it gets the point across.

And while we’re on the topic of great things in small packages, check out this tiny pollinator, which appears to be a hoverfly. It also goes by flower fly or a syrphid fly, and since “about 6,000 species in 200 genera have been described” in “the insect family Syrphidae“, I might not be identifying this one further any time soon.

Oh, and it’s working on a bladder campion (Silene latifolia) blossom, which we first saw on June 1.

I hear Tropical Depression Cristobal is due to arrive this afternoon with gale-force winds and torrential rain, so I’m not sure what we’ll have for tomorrow, but we’ll find out soon enough, eh?

You’ve got to be wondering, how long can this go on? I know I do. After all, how many birds even are there, anyway? At some point, we’ve got to have seen them all, right? Right. But today is not that day.

I was by the pond, heard a new, cheerful call, simply looked up, and immediately saw this sharp looking little guy. He’s a great crested flycatcher, as far as I can tell. Note the brown crest over a grey face. In other pictures, you can better see the creamy yellow belly. He was busy hopping from branch to branch announcing his arrival to anyone in earshot.

Meanwhile, the parade of damselflies continues with these two beauties I haven’t yet managed to identify.

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Finally, a red-eared slider, which I don’t think we’ve already seen, was out in the sun. He or she ought to have that nasty-looking green rash checked out, eh? Just kidding. That appears to be just algae, and he or she looks just fine.

That’s it for today, and I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.

It was a cool grey morning, and a great blue heron and a green heron were at the pond when I arrived, but neither were in the mood for pictures. One lone male mallard flew in, but there was no sign of the wood ducks. Even the muskrat was sleeping in, it seems.

Luckily, there is a whole lot of blooming going on. In addition to the virginia waterleaf, eastern daisy fleabane, and golden alexanders (Zizia aurea) all over the place recently,

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the towering cow parsnip (Heracleum maximum), creeping bird’s-foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus), and a foot-tall anemone, maybe Canada anemone (Anemone canadensis), have all just opened:

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Plus riverbank grape (Vitis riparia) and American cranberrybush (Viburnum trilobum), have joined the fray, which the birds might like later in the summer or fall.

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Not to be outdone, the bugs also stepped up their game. The cool temps did keep the mosquitos in their hangers this morning, which was nice, but also made this resplendent female ebony jewelwing damselfly (Calopteryx maculata) languid enough for me to take these pictures.

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Well, that’s all I’ve got for today, kids. Keep those hot tips and pics coming, and maybe I’ll feature yours the next time I come up empty with my own.

The recent usual suspects were all out and about. The muskrat was having breakfast on the west lawn, a few mallards and wood ducks were on the pond, and loads of red-wing blackbirds and grackles were flitting about. Meanwhile, I could hear robins, cardinals, chickadees, goldfinches, catbirds, wrens, and orioles in the trees. As far as I could see, however, there was nobody new in town today, and while some new flowers are on the way, they’re not quite open yet.

Yesterday afternoon, I did catch a couple more dragonflies, but their identification still eludes me.

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You know what that means, boys and girls? It’s time for “reader photo of the week”! Yay!

Our photo of the week was sent in by Doctor Robert Sansonetti from all the way out in Portland, Maine. He writes:

Hey nature dude!  What is this??

To which I immediately reply:

My best guess is a snake.

Then, after quickly consulting with my trusty herpetologist, Dr. Google, I follow up with:

More specifically, a Milk Snake.

And a mighty fine looking specimen, too. Apparently, they’re having a glut of milk snakes in the northeast. Anyway, Dr. Bob, ever thinking through the health implications, with his doctor trained brain, replied.

Close call then. I’m lactose intolerant. 

As the anonymous volunteers at the Pedia of Wik so eloquently put it:

Mating in dragonflies is a complex, precisely choreographed process. 

They continue, breathlessly:

 This distinctive posture is called the “heart”.

Probably, don’t try this at home, kids.

In any case, those are Mr. and Mrs. skimming bluet damselfly or Enallagma geminatum, as the ancient Latins liked to say. If you’ve ever wondered to yourself “just how many types of dragonflies and damselflies even are there in Wisconsin?”, head on over to the Wisconsin Dragonfly Society and wonder no more!

Meanwhile, that’s not the only action at the pond. It appears that we have crayfish, and somebody had a tasty one for lunch yesterday.

It looks raw and pretty fresh, so I’m thinking the kids that visit to catch frogs or go fishing didn’t eat it, and I bet the snapping turtle would eat it but not bother bringing it up on shore nor leave any parts behind. So my best guess is that the muskrat did it with his incisors right there on the northeast lawn. I sure hope he had some poivron, onion, and celery to go with!

Man, is there anything not living and breeding in this pond?

Oh, and before I forget, many thanks to the generous benefactor who left me the 50,000 Indonesian Rupiah banknote in the parking lot! Anne’s already planning to spend it on our second honeymoon.