Signs of Life in Estabrook Park

Thank goodness for backup pictures…

It was another very nice morning in Estabrook Park today, with a little more warmth trading off with a little more wind. At least the skies were clear.

There was no sign of that shy coot, but a great egret was back again, and here it is flying against that pretty blue sky.

A couple of double-crested cormorants were back on the river, and here’s one seemingly showing the other how to dry its wings.

Despite the nice weather, it was nearly opposite day with the birds, and I couldn’t manage any more presentable pictures than those two. Happily, yesterday was so fruitful, with the help of two wildlife walkers, that I have a few in reserve for just such an occasion. Here’s a curious song sparrow at the south end wondering if “you want a picture of li’l ol’ me?” “I sure do, Honey. I sure do.”

And here’s a Cooper’s hawk perched above the pond, as the sunlight first comes over the bluff to the east, appearing to wonder the same thing. “Yes, Sweetie. I’d like one of you, too.”

Finally, here’s a great blue heron, perched high above the meadow were we saw the cuckoo, with a look on its face that seemed to be saying something more along the lines with, “Fine! Take your darn picture!”

The forecast for tomorrow looks like a repeat of today, with clear skies, a breeze, and comfortable temps for the season. It will be interesting to see whether the critters put on a repeat of yesterday’s show or today’s. Time’ll tell.

Now that’s a real October show…

It was a spectacular morning in Estabrook Park, with clear skies again, mostly still air, and seasonal temps. The first big surprise of the day was spotting this American coot. It was hiding in the weeds that have grown up on the river bottom around the islands that is now often exposed because of the falls reshaping. We’ve had coots several times before, most recently in March, but this might be the shyest one I’ve seen yet.

Then it was time already to swing by the parking lot to collect our wildlife walkers, we had two again today, and they opted to go look for the coot on the river. We took our sweet time getting there, however, and along the way we came across the first hermit thrush I’ve been able to show you this fall.

When we finally did reach the river, there was no sign of the coot, I’m sorry to say, but the trees around the meadow were full of birds, and one of them was this little beauty, our first purple finch, not just of the fall, but of the whole year.

The star of the show for today, however, has got to be this gorgeous black-billed cuckoo, another bird we hadn’t seen yet this year in Estabrook. It flitted back and forth across the meadow a couple of times, giving us tantalizing glimpses, before it finally settled down in the sun and let us have a good look.

Finally, we did see one Monarch fly by and continue on its way toward the southwest, but I never saw another butterfly, until I got back to my own front yard. There, this cabbage white was feasting on some form of mint.

That’s it for today, and if you have a hankerin’ for more, you can simply wait for my post tomorrow, or you can join us at the North Shore School for Seniors for my 1pm presentation tomorrow.

A real title, this time…

It was a gorgeous October morning in Estabrook Park, with clear skies, a light breeze out of the west, and mild temps. With all that light, I was able to get in pretty early, for this time of year, and I spent a full 50 minutes there, before it was time to go meet up with the Milwaukee Birders in the Shorewood Nature Preserve, but I didn’t see anyone new.

Then I went to the preserve, had a great time catching up with folks, but once again failed to capture any blog-worthy images. One fun thing I did learn, however, is that the preserve just received a nice grant and they’re having a listening session on Tuesday, October 6 from 6-7:30 pm in the Shorewood Library Conference Room to get your input on how they should blow that money. Perhaps I’ll see you there.

Since we wrapped up at the preserve not too late in the morning, I decided to go back to Estabrook to try again for some pictures. Happily, the grebe I had seen earlier was still there and looking very nice in the morning sun. On the flip side, I couldn’t get the little stinker to float where some fall foliage was reflecting off the water, no matter how hard I willed it, so here it is in the warm glow of some invasive buckthorn, for all I know.

Donna and Marilyn drove over from the preserve to join me, and we all enjoyed the sight of a great blue heron dropping in to do a little fishing. Here it is slinking along the far bank and looking for its early lunch.

I would have to say, though, that the treat of the morning was watching this monarch butterfly flutter in and actually land on a flower, some small white aster, for a change, instead of green leaves. I read that the bulk of monarchs have already left for Mexico, and any monarch still alive at this late date is hardwired to fly south, but some might linger until late October before setting out. “Don’t wait too long, Sweetie! The weather can get crazy here.”

The forecast calls for chilly temps, but clear skies, and a light breeze for tomorrow morning, so come on out for our weekly wildlife walk if you’re able. We’re due for some rusty blackbirds, maybe even a snipe, and I’m hoping you can help me find them. I’ll look for you in the beer garden parking lot at 8am.

Also, if you skipped my talk about wildlife from around the world last week, because you only have eyes for local critters, then Tuesday’s your day. I’ll be updating my Estabrook Park presentation with the new sights from this year and delivering it at the North Shore School for Seniors at 1pm.

Finalized Post…

Ha ha ha. “Draft Template“. That’s a new one, even for me. That’s what I get for posting while tired.

Anyway, I just drove home from Minnesota this afternoon, which included running into traffic for the Brewers first playoff game of the year, so if anything, I’m even more tired tonight, and we’ll see what I manage to flub this time.

My visit to the Minnesota campus of the Carpenter Nature Center was fabulous, and we saw a lot of birds, but I did not get a lot of pictures. The distances were vast, there were a lot of people, and blah, blah, blah.

I did get one presentable picture, at least, and it is of this pair of mature bald eagles perched over the west bank of the St Croix River. We did see that one pair of eagles in Estabrook, perched over the Milwaukee River, but I was able to get closer this time, so there’s much better detail in their faces.

Now I’ve gotta get some sleep so that I can join the Milwaukee Birders in the Shorewood Nature Preserve tomorrow morning. Maybe I’ll see you there.

Draft Template

It was a full day here at the Wisconsin Master Naturalist Summit, and my first scheduled event was on leading educational hikes at Willow River State Park, so that’s where I went for sunrise to see who I could see before class began. There is a dam in the Willow River, originally built to harness the water power, and recently restored to maintain Little Falls Lake for recreation.

As you can imagine, kayakers and beach goers are not the only ones to make use of the lake, and here are a pair of bald eagles surveying part of their realm. My car thermometer said 37°F this morning, and the skies were clear so there was even frost on the grass from radiant cooling. But the lake water is still relatively warm, which generated a huge cloud of mist, but I couldn’t wait around for it to clear, so here’s your moody picture of the day.

It’s a state park in Wisconsin, and it’s not in Lake Michigan off of downtown Milwaukee, so it would be surprising if I didn’t see deer.

What I did find pleasantly surprising was finding an osprey at this late date. We haven’t seen one for a while in Estabrook, but clearly, they haven’t all flown south already.

The biggest surprise of the morning, however, was spotting this albino grey squirrel mining a maple tree for seeds along with a couple of its grey buddies.

Lastly, I hit another trifecta today, and our third raptor was this gorgeous red-tailed hawk.

Tomorrow, I get to go learn how to host an “Early Morning Bird Hike” at the Carpenter Nature Center in Hastings, MN. I don’t doubt that there are birds in Minnesota, but I’ve never recorded one there before, so this will be a first for me. Wish me luck!

Little birds in River Falls…

I made it to scenic River Falls, Wisconsin this morning, where the Kinnickinnic River meets the St. Croix. Heavy rain before sunrise made the drive a little harrowing, and traffic on I-94 was down to 35 mph at one point, but there were no mishaps that I could see. I got into town around 10:30am, and class didn’t start till 1pm, so I had a little time, and I decided to blow it in Kinnickinnic State Park, right where those two rivers flow together.

Most of the park sits on a high bluff over the water, and I thought I’d see more down below, so I scrambled down onto a big spit of sand, which has been there long enough for some tall trees to mature. Most of the water birds were actually on the other side of the Kinnickinnic River, where I really couldn’t get to them, but it turns out there was plenty to see right where I was.

I’ve already shown you a white-throated sparrow in Estabrook this fall, a couple of times, but I haven’t yet seen one in all its finery, so I couldn’t believe my luck when this gorgeous creature posed for me like it was yearbook picture day.

I haven’t even seen a palm warbler in Estabrook yet this fall, let alone shown you a picture, so I was doubly thrilled to spot this beauty. Holy Moly! Was there some event going on that I didn’t know about?

Then my trifecta came in when I spotted our first Lincoln’s sparrow of the season, and I didn’t even have to take a step. Even crazier is that I took all three of these pictures within two minutes. Jeepers creepers! It’s making me wonder if there isn’t really something to this whole “Mississippi Flyway” thing I keep hearing about.

I did see plenty of other birds, 27 additional species, in fact, but none let me have pictures even close to these, so I’ll just use those for documentation purposes. Then it was time to go to class, which was also on the Kinnickinnic River, but about 10 miles upstream, where we were going to learn about water monitoring.

Class was great, and now I have the training I need to be a “Water Action Volunteer“, but I couldn’t help but notice all the yellow-rumped warblers in the trees along the riverbank. As class was wrapping up, I couldn’t resist any longer, and I ran back to my car to grab my camera. Happily, the warblers were still flitting about and catching bugs, so I was able to snap this fun little picture. I’ve taken a few in Estabrook already this fall, but I’ve been holding out hope that I might get one this nice, so here it is.

My next class is at 8:30 tomorrow morning in Willow River State Park, so I think I’ll drive up there early and have a look around before class starts. Someone reported seeing a pileated woodpecker there just this morning, and who knows, maybe I’ll finally get to see one in the state of Wisconsin. Wish me luck!

Not a bad day, despite the delayed start…

It was raining pretty good when the sun supposedly came up, and it kept on raining through most of the morning. Happily, it didn’t rain all day, so I was able to get into Estabrook after lunch, and this is who I found that late in the day.

I didn’t see a single bird on the pond, during my first visit, and I wasn’t too surprised by the absence of the mergansers and the grebe, but this might be the first time I haven’t seen a wood duck on the pond in months. Maybe they decided not to wait until November this year to get out of town.

So, I hiked over to the river, which proved more fruitful. Besides the mallards and a couple of great blue herons, we had a double-crested cormorant visiting again.

The bigger treat, for me at least, was finally catching the great egret while it still had a fish in its bill. I don’t think I’ve seen one with a big fish, and they gobble down the little ones quite quickly.

Back up on the bluff, there were several tiny birds flitting about in the trees, and this is a pretty terrible picture, but it is our first golden-crowned kinglet of the fall migration.

When I stopped by the pond a second time, the wood ducks were still AWOL, but look who did show up: our pied-billed grebe.

Finally, beside the soccer fields at the south end, there were several more tiny birds in the trees, but the far better picture came in the weeds below where I finally captured an image of a returning swamp sparrow. They’ve been here for a couple of weeks, at least, but they really like to skulk around in the tall weeds, and this one only gave us a look because it appears to be in hot pursuit of some tasty morsel.

That’s the show for today, folks, and it turned out a lot better than I expected. Instead of keeping the momentum going tomorrow, I’m scheduled to be in River Falls, on the far western edge of the state, to take part in this year’s Master Naturalist Summit. Since I spent that week at the Retzer Nature Center in Waukesha back in July to get the certificate, I figure I’d better make use of it and go learn something more at the summit. As usual, I’ll bring my camera along, and I’ll do my best to show you what I find out there.

The weather’s fine, but my slump continues…

The weather really was fine in Estabrook this morning, and I’d be hard pressed to pick which of the last three mornings had weather measurably better than the other two. Plus, there are still plenty of birds around, both locals and migrators, so I have no complaint to make there. Thus, and I know you’ll be stunned to read this, the fault must lie with me.

Anyway, I did manage to get a couple of pictures, and here’s the first one. Perhaps this white-crowned sparrow heard me explaining yesterday about the white crown that hasn’t come in yet, because it let me have a real good look, and this one isn’t quite yet crisp black and white, but you can definitely see more white in it.

There are still a lot of Swainson’s thrushes around, and here’s one who let me sneak a picture through the leaves.

I did also see a few warblers, but that’s all that’s presentable from today, for reasons I can’t quite get a handle on. Luckily, I still have a couple images left over from Sunday, so here’s a male belted kingfisher who just caught a small fish on the river.

Finally, here’s a lone mallard hen taking a nap on a rock in the river. I read that she uses both “anatomical locking”, to stand on one leg with little or no muscle effort, and “half-brain sleep”, aka “unihemispheric slow-wave sleep” to sleep with one eye open, literally.

Now, I’ve just gotta get back to taking pictures of critters that don’t mind me taking their picture. We’ll see how tomorrow goes.

Slow going, despite the nice weather and the extra eyes…

The weather today in Estabrook Park was a near repeat of yesterday’s, which was very nice, and I had two folks join me for our weekly wildlife walk, which was also very nice. We headed first for the river, in hopes of seeing the great egret again, but before we could reach the water around the islands, we ran into this sharp-dressed little bird, the first white-crowned sparrow that I’ve been able to show you of the season. If you’re wondering where its white crown is, this is a youngster whose white crown hasn’t come in yet.

As good luck would have it, the white-crowned sparrow was palling around with a few white-throated sparrows, so I can show you both, for comparison purposes. The patterns on their heads are similar, especially if you only catch a glimpse, and the white throat isn’t necessarily obvious, so it is helpful for me to notice the streaky breast on the white-throated, compared to the plane breast on the white-crowned.

The great egret was nowhere to be found by the time we did reach the water, darn, though we did see a couple of double-crested cormorants flying around. So, we headed for the pond, and spotted a few warblers on the way. When we did reach the pond, we saw a few wood ducks, one hooded merganser, and one pied-billed grebe. I like better the grebe picture I took yesterday, so here it is.

Then my guests had to get on with their day, and I started my way home. At the far south end, near where I saw the house wren yesterday, I managed to capture this quick look at another black-throated green warbler.

And that’s my haul for today, I’m afraid, but I still have a couple more presentable images from yesterday, so here’s one of the last red-eyed vireos hanging around. I haven’t heard one making their regular call in weeks, and they blend in with the foliage quite well, so it was pure luck that I saw this one.

And here’s the best I could get of a blue-headed vireo foraging amongst the American goldfinches in a big cottonwood tree at the back of the dog park. I claimed on ebird to have seen one last May, but the last picture of one I can find is from last October!

Finally, I couldn’t find any butterflies, let alone dragonflies, on the weeds we still have left, but I did see this clouded sulfur sipping from the New England asters in the bioswale along Wilson Drive.

It looks like this nice weather should continue into tomorrow morning, so maybe I’ll have some better luck then. Cross your fingers!

A sunny day at last…

We had our first sub-fifty-degree start since last spring in Estabrook Park this morning, but the skies were pretty clear, and the breeze was very light, so it didn’t take the sun long to warm things back up. Yay!

It was a treat having all that sunlight, after the week we’ve had, and it sure lit up nicely this great blue heron fishing on the river between the islands.

The great egret was also fishing nearby, and it was reflecting so much light that I had to close the aperture on my camera enough to make the background look very dark. “Ooooh, moody.”

With all the action on the water, I don’t know exactly why I checked the trees over the downstream island, but I’m sure glad I did, because here’s the first red-tailed hawk I’ve been able to show you all month. “Where’ve you been, Beautiful?”

And wouldn’t you know it. I turn by head for 15 seconds, and the heron and egret get into a spat. Sheesh! Happily, it didn’t amount to much, and I’m lucky I even caught the end of it.

I didn’t see any other odd ducks on the water, so I started to make my way south, and as I cut through the woods south of the dog park to visit the pond again, I finally captured our first image of a brown creeper for this season. I’ve glimpsed them a couple of times already this week, but they’ve been too quick for me, until this morning.

As I was sitting on the bench at the pond, counting the wood ducks and the one grebe, some white-breasted nuthatches really started to make a racket across the parkway behind me. So, I went over there to check them out, and it turns out that there were three of them, which is probably what was causing the agitation, and this is the one that let me have a good look while it was preoccupied with its compatriots.

Finally, at the far south end, I caught the flash of a tiny brown bird close to the ground, and I hoped that it was one of the winter wrens I’ve been hearing. Well, it did come out to say “hi”, but now that I have the picture home, I can see that it is a late northern house wren instead. “Thanks for the picture, but what’re you still doin’ here, Sweet pea?” I haven’t seen a house wren in weeks, but I see their breeding range extends to the north shore of Lake Superior, so maybe it started up there and has only reached us now.

I did also see a couple of vireos and warblers, and the forecast for tomorrow looks about as nice as today’s, so come on out for our weekly wildlife walk, if you can, and get a look at these beauties for yourself before they’ve all flown south. I’ll be at the beer garden parking lot at 8am.