What an absolutely gorgeous morning in Estabrook Park! The sun was finally out, and the sky was breathtakingly blue. Plus, it had been nice and cold yet again overnight so the snow and ice on the trail were nice and crunchy. I can’t believe my continued good luck.

The mallards were at their usual spot, on the river just above the falls, and this morning they were joined by several familiar guests, some Canada geese and a red-breasted merganser, both of whom we saw a lot of on the pond last summer.

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Further north, by the wildflower meadow, I was treated to the spectacle of this amazing creature fending off 3 crows, which were all bigger than it was. If I had to guess, it had caught something, and the crows were trying to muscle in on lunch. I was sure I had finally captured some images of an American kestrel, but our hero is clearly missing the facial markings of a kestrel and has a banded tail, and it’s beak is smaller and shorter than that of a sharp-shinned hawk, so I’m going to go with a merlin (Falco columbarius), who is in its migration range. I did not see if it was able to get its lunch back.

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After all that excitement, it was nice to finally have an opportunity to get some pretty images of woodpeckers that have been keeping me company on the river trail all winter. Here’s a red-bellied and a female downy, as far as I can tell, intently looking for their lunches.

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Last, and perhaps most surprising, is this little cutie, who appears for all the world to be a gray catbird, complete with “a darker cap and cinnamon under the tail”, way outside its winter range.

And that’s all for today, folks.

It continues to dip below freezing at night, so the snow is sticking around nicely and the trail along the river continues to be nice and firm in the morning. I saw no new critters to report today, but the mallards were back in their regular place, just above the falls, and showing off a trick that I have not seen them perform before: diving completely under the water for food.

I had to use my phone for the video because some knucklehead forgot to put the memory chip back into my camera, but it still came out not too bad.

As the Cornell Lab of Ornithology explains “Mallards are “dabbling ducks”—they feed in the water by tipping forward and grazing on underwater plants. They almost never dive.” In fact, in a 1987 article by R. A. Furilla and David R. Jones in Physiological Zoology on Cardiac Responses to Dabbling and Diving in the Mallard, Anas platyrhynchos, I kid you not, the authors conclude “Obviously, mallards differ markedly from true diving ducks not only in cardiac adjustments to diving but also in their control.”

So there you have it. Right there on the Milwaukee River in Estabrook Park on January 7, 2021, the conditions were just right to induce a raft of Mallards to resort to this rare and magical behavior.

Speaking of rare and magical behavior, Anne and I did finally get to catch a glimpse of the busted remains of The Great Conjunction of 2020. It has been cloudy around here in the evening since well before December 21, the moment of “their closest encounter since 1623“, until Tuesday evening. Unfortunately, in the 15 days since the 21st, they have already moved back apart quite a bit and gotten closer to the horizon, so the viewing was not great, and I didn’t even try to take any pictures. Nevertheless, it was still cool to see, and by the time we have grandkids to tell about it, we will remember it as the most amazing thing ever.

Well, new to me here anyway. I had hiked to the north-end and back this morning before the snow got too soft, with nothing new to show for it, and just as I approached the soccer fields at the south end, I spotted a hand-full of little dark birds flitting about in the bushes. As luck would have it, one was more interested in what it was finding than it was worried about me, at least long enough for me to capture a couple of images. Give a warm New Years welcome to this little dark-eyed junco (Junco hyemalis) who looks to be near the north edge of its winter range.

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I can still hear in my head my grandmother pointing out juncos to me at the bird feeder she had just outside her kitchen window. If you also have a feeder, perhaps you’ve seen them, too. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, “juncos are among the most common songbirds of North America,” so it is a wonder that it took me this long to notice them.

The Pedia of Wik explains that “junco systematics are still confusing after decades of research, with various authors accepting between three and twelve species. [Yikes! And] despite having a name that appears to derive from the Spanish term for the plant genus Juncus (rushes), these birds are seldom found among rush plants, as these prefer wet ground, while juncos prefer dry soil.” Go figure, eh?

Meanwhile, on the river, the mallards have moved a bit north, the mergansers were nowhere to be found, and a bunch of herring gulls were in for a visit.

Well, my sources are silent on the subject of their exact pairing habits, so let’s suppose that this is the case. Anyway, I brought my camera with me today and so was able to spot both the male and the female common merganser on the river, and you can better see their long slender bills and pretty coloration.

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It took awhile this morning for them to swim close enough together so that I could capture them both in a single image, and in the few I have of them both, she’s appears to be explaining something to him in more than one. Anne suggests she was telling him to keep up.

Finally, here’s a picture just for fun.

PS. Still no ermine pictures, Carolyn. Sorry.

Nope, it’s not a painted bunting, and I’m not Switzerland’s ambassador to the United States. As if.

It was, however, nice and cold last night, right here in Shorewood, so the snow and ice on the trail along the Milwaukee River was nice and firm this morning, and just as I approached the river at the very south end of the park, I glimpsed a full-on bald eagle, with white head, white tail, and sharp look in its eye, gliding south over the river about even with the tree tops. That’s definitely a first for me here in the park and perhaps a good sign for their continued recovery. I read that Milwaukee County is “the only county [in Wisconsin] where no active nests have been documented,” yet.

Sadly, with the grey skies we’ve been having lately and that seemingly will never end, any picture I took, even if I did have my camera with me, would have been just a black silhouette against a white background.

The usual crowd of mallards were scattered from there all the way to the north end of the park, and when I turned around to head back south, I spotted a bright white duck with a dark head on the water. I had seen it once before and thought maybe it was a mallard-muscovy hybrid, but it was too far away to get a good look. This time, he was closer to the eastern shore and I managed this shot with my phone.

Happily, it appears I was mistaken, and as far as I can tell, that is a male common merganser. It clearly is not a similarly colored goldeneye or bufflehead because of its distinctly long and narrow beak, which leads common mergansers to sometimes be “called sawbills“. In fact, I read further that “the word “merganser” comes from the Latin and roughly translates to “plunging goose”—a good name for this very large and often submerged duck.”

Anyway, I do believe we have seen a common merganser on the river before, back on July 29, but not a male in such full adult splendor. It appears that we are near the northern edge of their non-breeding range, and it is common enough for them to hang out with mallards in icy water that Cornell Lab of Ornithology even has a video of it from New York, of all places.

Sorry, Carolyn, no ermine pictures yet, but 2021 is off to a nice start anyway, eh?

Let’s hope it’s a good one, eh? We sure could use one of those right about now.

Anyway, the park has a fresh blanket of snow and is looking gorgeous. If you are nearby, I hope you get a chance to visit while it lasts. The lower river trail is especially nice.

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About 50% of the river through the park is covered with ice and snow these days, but I wouldn’t say “frozen over” because I’ve been watching how the surface forms from floating slush and chunks of ice that accumulates at the rapids. At one point last week, the river was so backed up by the ice jam that the falls were almost completely submerged, at least a 3-foot rise, but that has abated some.

I caught a glimpse of a muskrat in the river this morning just before it ducked back under the water, which has been especially clear lately. Pretty much anywhere you look in, you can see the bottom now, which is a pleasant change from the turbid summer flow. I’ve heard reports of an ermine sighting, which I read is the name for any “species in the genus Mustela … in its pure white winter coat,” but I haven’t had that pleasure yet.

There has been quite a steady crowd of mallards on the surface recently, and they don’t appear to be put off by the cold water very much.

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Till next time…

It was nice quiet in Estabrook this morning, and I almost had the place to myself. With all the leaves off the trees and even the bushes, it feels like walking through the skeleton of the biome we enjoyed throughout the summer. Everyplace seems much more accessible now, so I wandered into an area that I’ve seldom visited before, and look at who I woke up from their nap.

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I was as startled as they were, which wasn’t too much, and the first thing I blurted out as “oh, sorry” as though I had opened the bathroom door without knocking. There were two more that were a little more eager to put some distance between us, but these two hung around for pictures. I wonder if they are the quartet we saw on the soccer fields so many times over the summer.

Meanwhile, it is looking like a really rough winter to be a cottonwood tree along the river. The beaver have been busy as, well …

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Last, and perhaps least, size-wise anyway, is a critter new to these pages, and for all the world it appears to be a groundhog (Marmota monax), aka woodchuck or Canada marmot.

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That brings our mammal picture count to 9, if I remember correctly:
1. Deer
2. Beaver
3. Raccoon
4. Groundhog
5. Rabbit
6. Muskrat
7. Gray squirrel
8. Red squirrel
9. Chipmunk

Plus 4 that I spotted but could never capture “on film”, at least so far:
10. Mink
11. Possum
12. Bat
13. Mouse

And that doesn’t even count the coyotes that everyone and their brother have photographed trotting down the roads and sidewalks of Shorewood. I’ve heard reports of them in Estabrook, but never had the pleasure myself.

As for avians, there are still a few mallards on the river, I spot Canada geese overhead from time to time, and the trees are full of chickadees, nuthatches, and woodpeckers chatting away amongst themselves.

I guess Estabrook’s a busy place after all, eh?

Ha! I was just as stunned to find this as you probably are to read about it. My best guess is that this is a hairy goldenaster (Heterotheca villosa) in bloom on DECEMBER 5TH at the top of the slope from the falls up to the beer garden. Surprise, surprise, eh?

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U up?

I haven’t been to the park much lately. Instead I’ve been riding my bike on the Oak Leaf Trail, and it is peak aster season right now. I hope you get a chance to get out and see them in all their glory. As luck would have it, there are even still a few butterflies around to make the pictures interesting. Mind you, I’m reduced to using just my phone, and I get people shouting “zip it up, buddy” as they ride by while I carefully wade through the flowers covered in bees on the side of the trail trying to line up a shot. In any case, here’s what I got.

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Finally, not everybody is so brightly colored, and this little guy blended in quite well with the pavement as it slowly crossed from the railroad tracks to the Brown Deer Park golf course north of Good Hope road.

I hope it finds a nice little pond to swim in.