Signs of Life in Estabrook Park

Retzer Nature Center!

We traded in the clear sky for calm air, but it was still another very nice morning in Estabrook Park, and the big surprise today was finding these three handsome amigos on the exposed river bottom, right beside the upstream island where I spotted the doe and fawn yesterday. I believe that I did also see the doe again this morning, but the fawn must have been sleeping in.

Then it was time to go meet Donna for a ride out to the fabulous Retzer Nature Center in Waukesha, where she and Katie had arranged for the Milwaukee Birders to visit today. They had promised bobolinks, for which I am an absolute sucker, as you may have realized by now, and they delivered!

Someone mentioned that bobolinks are sometimes called “skunk birds” due to their coloration, but I was amused to find, when I searched for “which birds are called skunk birds”, that the title is shared with the hoatzin, which we saw in the Brazilian Amazon a couple of years ago, because of “the manure-like odor that their foregut bacterial fermentation system produces.” Huh!

Anyway, moving on, we came across a common yellowthroat who was being uncharacteristically uncoy.

In addition to the large meadows, which are only mowed on a specific schedule to suit the bobolinks, they also have water features at Retzer, and the small pond we visited had green frogs (Lithobates clamitans), which I’ve only ever knowingly seen before in the Mequon Nature Preserve. I keep searching for them in Estabrook, but I’ve only come up with bullfrogs so far.

Given the open meadows I mentioned above, you should hardly be surprised to hear that we saw bluebirds, and here’s a dad just about to deliver a tiny morsel to the nesting box attached lower to the post he’s perched upon.

As you might expect from a “nature center” they have bird feeders by the main building, and we watched a parade that included, jays, woodpeckers, finches, nuthatches, a pair of rose-breasted grossbeaks, and even a ruby-throated humming bird, but the bird that put on the best show, in my humble opinion, was this house wren singing his heart out on a post nearby.

Finally, there were quite a few large, orangey butterflies flitting about, but I couldn’t will one to land, no matter how hard I tried, until this one found a thistle blossom to its liking, and that was the opportunity I needed to ID them as great spangled fritillaries, which we’ve only gotten to see once in Estabrook and once in the Mequon Nature Preserve. It turns out that they’re just as great and spangled on the outside as on the inside. Nice.

It appears that the recent streak of cool and pleasant weather will continue into the morning, after a shower late this afternoon, so conditions should be good for our weekly wildlife walk tomorrow. We’re already well past the earliest sunrise of the year, but there should still be enough light for a 7 am start, for the early risers, and I’ll swing back by the parking lot again at 8 am for the sleepy heads. Maybe the fawn will be up by then, too, or someone can manifest the eagles again.

Wowed in Estabrook Park again…

It was an epic morning in Estabrook Park. The weather was nearly perfect, with clear blue skies, nice cool temps, and just a bit of a breeze; and the critters simply wowed me. The lack of clouds got me out nice and early, so by the time I reached the pond, the goslings were still keeping warm in Mom’s tender embrace, as Dad watched over to make sure everyone kept a respectful distance.

The great blue herons seem to be finally warming to the place, and this one didn’t even seem to mind me on the boardwalk while if fished just below the falls. The bluff is steep there, and the sun wasn’t very high yet, so most of the light was reflected off the trees over the far riverbank.

By the islands, however, the bluff is pretty low, the sun was higher in the sky by the time I got there, and that conspired to light up this green heron, with the wee fish it just caught, like a spotlight.

You might want to be sitting down for this next image. As I was working on the green heron picture above, look at the action taking place on the island behind it. That’s right, the first goslings on the pond are followed the very next day with our first fawn of the season. How amazing is that?!?!

But wait. There’s more! As I was working on my best fawn picture, look who flew in to perch over the far riverbank. We may not have seen a pair of eagles together since last December when they serenaded each other.

I stopped by the pond again to see if I couldn’t get a picture of the goslings going for a swim, but the pond was already crowded with people, so I retired to the river one more time, and that’s where I found them. Mom and Dad had already marched the three little ones down the path through the woods. Hmph, that was quick! I did get some pictures, but they’re nothing amazing, so here’s one of the two wood duck hens instead, who were also there, with one of her ducklings. One had five, whom I believe we’ve seen there before, and one had nine, who could well be the brood that started with twelve back on the pond just three weeks ago.

Finally, the dragonflies are still thick on the weeds beside the soccer fields, but I didn’t see a new one today, so here’s a gorgeous common buckeye, which we haven’t seen since last October.

Wouldn’t you agree that they put on an epic show today?

Nature found a way…

Long-time readers may recall that back in mid-April, the wettest April on record for Milwaukee, we had so much rain over one night that the island in the pond was under water by morning, the goose was off her nest, and her eggs were floating. I saw both geese hanging around for a while, and then there was just one. When they are together, I can see that the gander is slightly smaller, but when they are alone, I can’t tell which is which. Thus, I couldn’t tell who had taken off and who had stuck around.

Well, the mystery was solved this morning when I came across this bucolic scene beside the pond. It appears that the goose had merely gone back to nesting somewhere nearby, and the gander remained at his post to keep watch. Talk about determination! I have seen her go back to her nest to lay a second clutch, once before, but that happened in relatively short order after a predator had gotten to the eggs. This time she had to wait for the island to dry out, if that’s even where she tried again.

Anyway, congratulations to the proud couple, and I hope things go smoothly from here on out.

Here’s one of the little rascals, soaking in the big beautiful world it has just inherited, a bit later in the morning after the sun had cleared the trees.

Meanwhile, just on the other side of the island, this doe played coy for a moment before is ambled into the woods.

I didn’t see any green herons at the pond today, but here’s one hunting on the river just off the upstream tip if the upstream island.

I couldn’t tell exactly what was going on here, but perhaps red-bellied woodpeckers were still sorting out nesting arrangements, because this male stayed in the cavity and called, while a female hung on the outside a bit around farther up the trunk. Perhaps she’s just not yet ready to commit.

Perhaps this Halloween pennant dragonfly heard me gushing about our first calico pennant yesterday, because here it is, the very next day, as if I had summoned it with a spell.

Finally, here’s another first butterfly of the year, a tiny eastern tailed-blue, looking nice and pristine.

Happy Juneteenth!

Still new things to see…

The cool and cloudy weather continued this morning in Estabrook Park, but we traded the rain in for a breeze, and now the sun is out. Nice.

Our first guest of the morning is this exquisite male indigo bunting beside the river at the north end, who appears to be wondering what kind of weird little dance I was doing as I tried moving forward, back, left, and right to get him the cleanest background I could find. The leaves blowing around behind him in that breeze did not help one bit!

Things were easier out on the water where this killdeer paused for a moment to enjoy the sun as it poked through the clouds.

That’s it for the birds today, I’m afraid, but the good news is that the weed patch beside the southern soccer fields was buzzing with dragonflies. I counted individuals of eight species, and one of them happened to be our very first Calico Pennant (Celithemis elisa).

And another was our very first Variegated Meadowhawk (Sympetrum corruptum), which brings our lifetime haul in Estabrook to 25 species! Holy moly, right?

There were also a few butterflies flitting about, and here’s our first painted lady of the season and close cousin of the American lady we saw back in May.

Finally, Bob reports that the glossy ibises he arranged for me to see in Maine are “very upset that they [haven’t made it into] a post yet, despite their multiple low-level flybys.” Sheesh! Everyone’s a critic. FWIW, Bob has seen them in Maine before, but I’ve only ever seen them in Morocco, until now.

Lastly “the bobolink is also sad that [I’m] dissin’ him, too.” Anne’s always reminding me that east coasters come with a reputation, and maybe now I’m starting to see what she means. Anyway, you may recall that I only saw bobolinks for the first time just last summer, first in the Horicon Marsh, and then on the south side of Milwaukee, near the airport. It’s great to see that they’ve found some suitable habitat in Maine as well.

Tomorrow morning’s forecast calls for “sunny” skies, and that would be nice for a change, so keep your fingers crossed.

Back in E.P. again, plus a few more sights from Vacationland…

Sorry about skipping yesterday’s post, but Bob kept me out taking pictures until it was time to go to the airport, 😉, I didn’t get home from Maine until around 11 pm, and I went straight to bed at that point. The good news is that I made it home safely, the not-so-great news is that it was a rainy morning in Estabrook Park, and the not-so-bad news is that I was able to sneak in and get some pictures before the rains came.

Here’s a very fresh-looking batch of mallard ducklings on the river beside the downstream island, and boy did they act like they were hungry. You’d think they’d spent their whole lives living in a shell until just this morning.

A bit farther upstream and between the two islands, a great blue heron put in a relatively rare appearance, at least for this year so far.

And those are the pretty sights I managed to capture under the thick clouds and before the precipitation started today. Luckily, I’ve still got a few pictures from my trip out east that I haven’t been able to show you yet, and this first one is the first shorebird chick I’ve ever seen, a young piping plover snuggled up under one of its parents on Half Mile Beach in Reid State Park.

There were four of the little rascals, in fact, and here’s one getting the hang of that iconic shorebird behavior of chasing after a wave as it recedes and then fleeing the next one to keep its tootsie toes dry. They look barely larger than two cotton balls stacked atop a couple of toothpicks, but man, they were quick on their feet already!

One odd sight was spotting these four adults getting into quite a kerfuffle. This was just yesterday morning, a Tuesday, so you wouldn’t think that they’d been drinking already, and perhaps it was just about local politics.

The fight did eventually break up, all the parties moved on, and so did Bob and I, but our next fun sight came only a couple dozen yards up the beach. This here is my very first Semipalmated Sandpiper (Calidris pusilla). Long-time readers may be thinking, “didn’t we just see a semipalmated something-or-other in Estabrook just a week and a half ago, that he was all in a dither about?” Well, they’re right, but that “something-or-other” was a “plover”, not a “sandpiper”. See? A completely different small shorebird.

Anyway, I haven’t been able to show you much in the way of mammals from this trip, so here’s a Harbor Seal (Phoca vitulina), if my sources are correct, just off the beach and probably wondering if we don’t have any fish to share. A herring or a flounder, even a hake would do.

I see that tomorrow morning is also forecast to be cool and cloudy, but at least the chance of rain is slight, so maybe I’ll get lucky and have more to show you.

Maine picks up the pace…

After the great showing from Vermont yesterday, Bob was a little miffed that Maine was coming up short on the species count, so before we went back to his place, we stopped at the Scarborough Marsh again to see if there might be anyone new. Sure enough, we had barely gotten out of the parking lot when we spotted a pair of greater yellowlegs foraging on the mud exposed by the low tide. We’ve seen them in Estabrook Park once before, but I didn’t see any in Vermont, so Bob considered that a step in the right direction.

The willets were still there and more active than before. One even paid us a visit up on the causeway, and here it is perched on a little tree, which I didn’t even know willets could do. Did you?

It was raining when we got up this morning, so we had a nice breakfast and then headed out to Frye Island in Sebago Lake, and the rain was done by the time we arrived. I thought for sure we’d see plenty of waders and waterfowl, but that was oddly not the case. Instead, the treat of the island was this yellow-bellied sapsucker with a beak full of bugs. Yum!

The highlight of the visit, however, came as we took the car ferry back to the mainland. Just as it pulled into the dock, I looked out the window, and I could barely believe my eyes. As you well know, I’ve seen goslings, ducklings, and even a couple of great crested grebelings, but I have never seen common merganserlings until now. “Beat that, Vermont!”

Once again, it’s quite late, so I’m gonna wrap this up and hit the sack. Tomorrow I finally head back home.

Vermont pulls out all the stops…

After the great day at Shelburne Farm yesterday, I thought I’d give the waterfront another try this morning, so I hiked down to the lake and this time, I headed north. Things got off to quite a slow start, and I was all the way up to North Beach Park, about 2.5 miles from our Airbnb, before this little eastern phoebe called for my attention. We see them in Estabrook, but not since April.

That seemed like a nice start, so I wandered around the park a bit until I heard a chirp that I thought might be a raptor. Since I haven’t gotten pictures of many this trip, I immediately started searching for it, and as I rounded the bath house, I heard it again, but closer to the ground. Well, I must have made more noise than I thought, because right about then someone poked their head up to see who I was.

You may be forgiven for not recognizing that face because I haven’t been able to show you a picture of it very often. Happily, its owner hopped up a little higher to get a better look at me.

That’s right, campers, we’ve got ourselves another pileated woodpecker, and this time it is not hiding behind the leaves of a tree. His red cheek and forehead make him a he, and I was torn about what to do next. I really, really wanted a nice pileated picture, but I also very much didn’t want to chase off the bird. Since I was already quite close, and it hadn’t fled yet, I opted to maintain that same distance and see if it would let me ease around to the side of that stump. My luck held, my plan worked, and here’s our beauty and the mine it was excavating.

In fact, I had so many pictures, and the bird just kept digging, that it finally occurred to me to take some video, so here you go. Mmm, mmm, carpenter ants and their larvae!

Finally, I’ve gotta wrap this up ’cause it’s late, so here’s the lemon gumdrop on top, a northern yellow warbler with a beak full of the bugs it has collected for its fledgling nearby.

Tomorrow, Bob and I are gonna see if we can’t find as many species here in Maine as we had the good fortune to find in Vermont. Wish us luck!

Vermont humbles again…

Given my luck at the lakefront yesterday, I opted to try someplace inland today, and the Centennial Woods Natural Area on the UVM campus looked perfect, on paper. So, I let Bob sleep in and roped Steve, another old high school buddy and now also a member of the Estabrook Cinematic Universe, into driving me out there early this morning. He went for a trail run while I tried to find you some pictures.

The woods were wonderful and the wildlife was plentiful there, but it seemed to be intent on reminding me that this isn’t supposed to be easy. For example, here’s a gorgeous viceroy butterfly, which we’ve even seen in Estabrook before, that kept itself half hidden behind some fern leaves. Sheesh!

The hardest pill to swallow, however, was this pileated woodpecker, which I’ve only ever gotten to see a couple of times so far, who called to get my attention, hopped up the side of this tree about as fast as I could move my camera, and then was gone. Dang it!

Then it was time to go back to the Airbnb, have some breakfast, collect the whole crew, and go check out the amazing nearby Shelburne Farms. There, my luck changed. Before we even left the parking lot, there was an occupied osprey nest almost right over the far end of it.

And this savannah sparrow posed like a statue on the split rail fence around it.

We hiked over to the enormous and ornate barn they have, and this turkey vulture made a nice, slow, and low pass right over it.

We continued hiking to the lake shore to check out the historic Shelburne Farms Inn, and there was a female common merganser, which we haven’t seen in Estabrook since early April, drying out on the rocks at the water’s edge.

Finally, in the nice stand of sugar maples they have, this eastern chipmunk asked the savannah sparrow to “hold my beer.”

Our weekend reunion wraps up tomorrow, and then Bob and I will drive back across New Hampshire to his place in Maine. It will be interesting to see, at least for me, where I find something to show you: Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, or even Namibia. Time will tell!

Vermont is slow out of the gate…

Bob and I did make it to Vermont yesterday afternoon, the rest of the crew also arrived, and I did get out to the Lake Champlain waterfront nice and early this morning, but somebody must have tipped off the birds that I was going to go looking for them, because they kept themselves well-hidden so far.

I did have one fun close-call when I realized that a gull I was watching was actually an osprey carrying a fish, and then a bald eagle approached to see if the osprey needed any help with that. By the time I could bring my camera to bear, however, the stinkers flew right in front of the sun, and I lost them. At least I wasn’t trying to track them with my binoculars. Phew!

Thus, I’m forced to go back, at least for today, to the deep well that was coastal Maine. This first statuesque bird, a great egret, was hunting in the Scarborough Marsh, and we have seen them in Estabrook Park once in a while, but none have stopped in lately, and here’s hoping we get one this year.

Here’s one of the willets taking a break from flying around.

The tricolored heron kept its distance, so this is the best shot it would let me have.

I mentioned that the least terns were nesting, and here’s one of them on its carefully crafted depression in the sand.

The piping plover kept to the shoreline, probably because that’s where the food was, so here it is amongst the seaweed and clamshells.

The eider drake did give us a nice look at its face.

Finally, Bob and I did get out for a minute before he drove us to VT, and here’s an eider hen with her fuzzy little duckling.

Well, just about everyone is up by now, and we’ve gotta get on with our day, so wish me luck with the local fauna, and I’ll see what I can come up with for tomorrow.

Yes, we went to Scarborough Ferry…

Soon after I arrived at Portland International Jetport yesterday afternoon, just outside of Portland, Maine, my old high school buddy, Bob, picked me up and took me immediately to the Scarborough Marsh, were we saw mallards, willets, great egrets, double-crested cormorants, a belted kingfisher, and even a tricolored heron.

The marsh is huge, however, so plenty of the birds were content to keep their distance from the causeway were on, and those great distances, combined with the warmth of the afternoon sun made for some mediocre pictures, but this snowy egret, which we last saw in Dallas, showed me some pity and got to fishing close enough for a presentable image.

The willets, which we last saw on Caye Caulker in Belize, flew around a bit, and these two must have been distracted and also drifted close enough for a moment.

The action really started, though, when Bob took me to Ferry Beach, where the Scarborough River empties into Saco Bay. As soon as we stepped out onto the beach, we could see ducks out on the water, and I thought they looked like mallard hens, at first glance, but Bob casually mentioned that they were Common Eider (Somateria mollissima). When I took a closer look, all I could think was “common eider? They’re my very first eiders, and I don’t see anything common about them, especially that drake! Holy smokes!”

As we were watching them, and I was trying to get a picture, one came up from the bottom with a tasty treat, and a herring gull immediately flew over to see what it was.

As you can see, it turned out to be a crab, probably an Atlantic rock crab (Cancer irroratus). Mmm-mmm-mmm. Tasty indeed.

There were also small terns darting over the water, and as we walked around the bend of Chandler Point, we were able to get a closer look and discover that they were Least Terns (Sternula antillarum), another first for me. Several were nesting right on the beach, but I thought that this one showing off its short little legs made a more interesting sight.

Finally, the main attraction, and the reason Bob had dragged me to this beach in the first place, was this tiny Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus), even smaller than the semipalmated plover we just saw in Estabrook. I read that they are “an endangered shorebird protected by both State and Federal laws,” and “Scarborough works closely with partners from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and Maine Audubon to protect the plovers on our beaches.” Cool.

Then it was time to get to Bob’s house, have some dinner, finish yesterday’s post, and hit the sack. Today, we drove over to Burlington, VT, on Lake Champlain to meet some more old friends and see if there’s any wildlife there. I’ll keep you posted.