This is gonna have to be quick, because it’s been a long day, it’s already late, and I am beat. As I mentioned yesterday, Anne booked us a safari for today at the fabulous Pilanesberg National Park, and it’s gonna take me days to sort through all the pictures I took, so here’s a tiny sample to give you just a taste of the place.
Tomorrow’s another travel day, already, but I have a hope of finally getting to check out the hotel grounds before we head out in the morning. If I even have a fraction of the luck I had today, I won’t need you to wish me any.
After 27 hours of travel, including stops at JFK and Nairobi, we finally arrived at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, South Africa this afternoon. Woo hoo! Even better, the area between the terminal and the shuttlebus zone was quite nicely landscaped with trees, plants, and a bit of lawn, so there was plenty to see while we waited for our hotel shuttle to arrive.
We spotted this little cutie before we had even reached the shuttlebus zone, and long-time readers might recognize it right away as a wagtail, but which one? I was thrilled to discover that it is my very first Cape wagtail (Motacilla capensis). Yippee!
By the time we found a spot to park for the wait, and I got my gear out, there was another little bird flitting around, who looked a bit like a house sparrow, but upon closer inspection, there’s more black on the head, face, and neck, and none of it is mottled, the way it is on a house sparrow’s neck, and that’s because this is my very first Cape sparrow (Passer melanurus). Hurray!
I eventually made it to the patch of lawn, where I actually took the two pictures above, and there was yet a third surprise also foraging there. The beak says “finch”, but it appears that they don’t make a “Cape finch”, so this one is my first ever red-headed finch (Amadina erythrocephala). Holy smokes!
I started to hear a little, high-pitched chirp in the tree growing above the lawn, and a brief search turned up this striking little foliage-gleaner, which resumes the parade of birds with “Cape” in their names, with Cape white-eye (Zosterops virens), a fourth first for me. Ach du Lieber!
Well, I’ve gotta wrap this up because Anne’s got us scheduled to leave for a safari in a nearby national park at 5:30 am, and I could sure as heck use some beauty sleep after that flight.
It’s gonna be a long day of planes, trains, and automobiles, not necessarily in that order, so I’m afraid I won’t have any new pictures for you today, either. Instead, here are a couple of birds I hope to see again when we finally reach our destination.
Hamerkop
Violet-backed starling
My sister is joining us for this leg of the trip, so I’ve got two great spotters with me, and I’m thinking my chances will be pretty good.
Well, the wet weather we’ve been enjoying in Wisconsin lately must have followed us to Connecticut, because it rained on-and-off all morning here. If I were home and had dry shoes I could switch into, I would have gone out in it, but I’m traveling light, so that wasn’t an option.
Instead, Anne, my siblings, and I hiked up Sleeping Giant this afternoon, and we did hear a few birds, but they must have been waiting for their feathers to dry out before they came out of hiding, because I don’t think I saw a one.
Thus, I’m reduced to recycling this old picture from when I was out here in 2024. It’s a tufted titmouse, which you may not recognize because I’ve only ever managed to show you pictures of them when I’m traveling. One of these days, one of these little stinkers will let me have a look at them in Estabrook Park, and that will be glorious, but until that day comes, we’ll just have to suffer through with this.
It looks as though it’ll be a nice enough morning in Estabrook Park, but I won’t be there to enjoy it today. Instead, Anne and I are off to Connecticut to visit my family for a couple of days. Luckily, I’ve had a couple of great outings lately that produced some backup pictures, so here they are.
First up is another look at the catbird from yesterday, as it picks a sumac seed out of the clump it is perched upon.
Here’s a female, red-bellied woodpecker in that big, beautiful oak tree by the picnic area northwest of the beer garden.
Here’s hoping I can find some nice sights to show you tomorrow from Connecticut, and FWIW, I typed this on my phone at the airport, so you can blame all the typographical errors on my big, fat thumbs.
It was a perfect morning in Estabrook Park. Sure, it was a little cool, a few degrees below the average low for this date, but the sky was crystal clear, and the air was nearly calm, so the sun warmed things up pretty quickly, and it was just a fabulous time to go looking for wildlife. With any luck, that could be our last frost of the season, too.
My first treat of the morning came when the gray catbird, which has been hiding out in the bushes at the far southwest corner of the softball field since Monday, finally relented and posed perfectly, atop a clump of sumac seeds and in the sun. “Hello, Gorgeous!”
Then, a green heron finally visited the pond. At first, it was nearly in front of the sun, so terribly backlit, but then it moved north a smidge to make the nicest green heron picture so far this year. “Thanks, Precious!”
When I strolled around the pond, I found the thrasher there again, making this my best thrasher year by far.
It was still too early to head home, so I hiked back toward the north end, and look who I found along the way, our first black-and-white warbler of the year. “Welcome back, Darling!”
Then it was finally time to head home, and as I passed the pollinator garden, I glimpsed a flash of blue. Happily, the flash didn’t go far, and it perched on a low branch of that big oak tree there, where it turned out to be this stunning male eastern bluebird. What a beauty, right?
Finally, as I was crossing the southern soccer fields toward the exit to Wilson Drive, I took one more look around to soak in a little bit more of the perfect weather, and look who I saw gliding right towards me: the very first American white pelicans I’ve ever been able to photograph in the park. What a way to wrap up the month, eh? I don’t know how it gets better than this.
Oh, if you clicked on the link I provided yesterday to view that post on my website, and you found the pictures to be better that way, you can do that again today without me having to insert the link like that. Just click on the light-gray text in the upper right corner of this message that says “Read on blog“, and that should provide you with the same result.
It was cool, cloudy, and rainy this morning in Estabrook Park, but at least it wasn’t too windy. The main story today is that we have our first gosling of the year! There was just one, and it was up on our riverbank with Mom and Dad. The nest was probably on one of the islands, so it had already taken its maiden voyage across a river channel. Let’s hope there are plenty more to see soon.
Before I reached the gosling, I got eyes, and a lens, on our first northern waterthrush of the year. I’ve heard one at least twice before, already, but they kept themselves well hidden, until now.
Beyond the goslings, I also got eyes on my first white-eyed vireo of the year, which is early enough to be considered “rare”, and I wonder if it could be the same bird I just saw in Belize last fall. They sure look similar!
Up on the bluff, I spotted the pair of deer again, and this time I got a better look at his pedicles, so I’m pretty sure that he’s a he.
Meanwhile, she’s not a reindeer, so she’s got no sign of anything growing up there.
If birds just aren’t your thing, it happens, then perhaps one of the Friends of Estabrook’s weedouts on Saturday, May 2nd and May 16th at 9 am will float your boat. Walk-ins are welcome, the garlic mustard is blossoming already, and I can hear it calling your name!
It was cloudy and breezy in Estabrook Park this morning, but it felt a little warmer than yesterday, and it didn’t rain on me, so it was not a bad morning for April.
My first treat of the day was hearing and then finally seeing a brown thrasher again. This time it was by the skate park.
The learning started with another turkey sighting, back on our side of the river and just east of the boat ramp. First, I learned that it can be tricky telling males from females from just a picture like this. This one has more of a red wattle on the neck than the hen from last week, but not as much as the tom she was with. So, it could be a young male, which I’ve also just learned are called “jakes“. This one also has more of a “snood“, an entirely new word for me, hanging over its beak than the hen from last week, but not one so long as the tom she was with.
This next picture looks mostly the same, but it has one small difference. Can you spot it? Well, it turns out that turkeys can do this with their snoods, and it suggests that this is a jake who I am making nervous. “Sorry, Buddy! I’ll leave you alone so you can relax.”
After that, I stopped by the pond, where this wood duck drake did not require me to learn any new terminology.
I did hear an eastern towhee again today by the pond, and it sounded pretty deep into the woods, so here’s one that is also in the woods from one week ago, but wasn’t quite as deep.
Finally, it appears that all our little dark-eyed juncos have flown north for the summer, I haven’t seen one in nearly a week, so here’s the last picture I captured of one, on the 19th. “See you next fall!”
Well, the rain is back, but at least it held off until the end of our wildlife walk this morning, so that’s something. We had a good turnout today, with four 7-am-ers, and five 8-am-ers. Our first stop was the pond, but we didn’t see much, so we headed for the river in search of the oriole I showed you yesterday. Before we could get across the softball field, however, Karen spotted the first red-headed woodpecker I’ve seen since September 2025. Outstanding!
It flushed across the river as we approached the edge of the bluff, and we hadn’t seen the oriole yet, so we took stairway seven down to the river path in hopes of better luck. There, another bird bolted but didn’t go far, and I was halfway through explaining how the white checks on its black back made it a towhee, before I got my binoculars on it to see clearly that it is instead our first rose-breasted grosbeak of the year. Hot dang! Now we’re cookin’!
We did find the red-head again, and there turned out to be two of them, but the crowd also spotted this handsome kingfisher and patiently coached me through where it was perched. “Thanks, team!”
In all the excitement, I can’t recall if we did see the oriole in the first hour, but when I went back to the parking lot to greet the 8-am squad, there it was, perched right over the path from the parking lot to the beer garden. This is still far from a portrait, but I think we can all agree that it’s a big improvement over yesterday’s image.
As we headed upstream to connect with the first group, Peggy alerted me to this great blue heron perched high over the first island. They still don’t seem very comfortable in the park, but it’s still early, and we have all summer.
After that, the pictures mostly dried up. We did see the sandpiper at the river, and Dan did get eyes on the catbird I had heard earlier, another first for the year, but it dove for cover before I could catch a glimpse. Perhaps it, and the rest of the critters, could feel the coming rain and had the good sense to hunker down. The silver lining is that this leaves room for the pretty northern flicker I saw yesterday, when the sky was blue.
The front that’s passing through today should be mostly gone by tomorrow morning, so conditions should be back to about what we had today, and maybe I’ll have as much good luck.
Sorry about missing yesterday. I did visit Estabrook, but only for a couple of hours, during which time I didn’t see much, and then I had to ditch my camera and grab my gripper for the Milwaukee Riverkeeper Cleanup, which apparently set some kind of record. My buddy Mike joined me again, and we hauled out three large garbage bags full and one more tire from beside the river. After that, it was already after noon, and I was shot, but one highlight was seeing my first spotted sandpiper of the year. I only had my phone with me at that point, but woo hoo anyway.
This morning, the weather was about the same as yesterday, cool and cloudy, but a little less breezy and still no rain. The critters, on the other hand, were a lot more visible today. Maybe they were enjoying the newly squeaky-clean park, or they were reasserting their ownership of it after the crowd of volunteers yesterday. Either way, my first treat was spotting this cutie right at the bottom of the stairway from the beer garden. Given all the traffic yesterday, it must not have bothered her enough to move.
Above the falls, beside the downstream island, this beaver let me know, more than once, that it would like a little less traffic. “Noted! And sorry, Honey!”
Meanwhile, the tom turkey looked on from the far shore and seemed instead to want attention, from someone at least.
I eventually continued upstream, and when I turned the corner in the little path that runs beside the river, I was greeted by this tranquil scene. I can’t tell for sure just from this image, but those might be the start of antlers just in front of the ears.
I did my best to leave the deer undisturbed and pressed on. Along the way, I glimpsed the sandpiper a couple of times again, but it had recovered from the exhausted stupor it appeared to be in yesterday, and it flitted off as soon as it saw me. On my way back to the falls, it flew again but this time must have finally felt comfortable enough with the distance it had put between us, to sit for our first sandpiper picture of the year. Yippee!
Farther downstream, this chipmunk opted to stand its ground, at least until I had the best image I figured I was going to get through the leaves and sticks and continued on my way.
Finally, I had heard this guy singing yesterday morning high over the far shore just below the falls, but he bolted before I could even get my binoculars on him. He flitted a couple of times today, as well, but on my third try I was able to sneak our first Baltimore oriole picture of the year from about 100 yards away. “Welcome back to Estabrook, Handsome!”
Given that sunrise is now before 6am, and the breeze is supposed to increase a bit as the morning wears on, let’s revive the 7am start for those of you who are up for it. Don’t worry! You can still come at 8, and someone will swing by the parking lot to collect you, but if you want an early start, I’ll see you at 7.
