The recent cold snap we’ve had in Connecticut is taking the weekend off, and I think a high pressure system is sitting right over us, so it is a picture perfect August morning here with mild temps, still air, and clear skies. As I mentioned, my sister doesn’t have to work today, so we drove out to the reservoir on the edge of town where we’ve seen bald eagles and great blue herons nesting before.
Everyone is done with nesting by now, but plenty of birds are still hanging around there, and here’s a belted kingfisher who stopped by before the sun came over the hill.
It appears that the mute swans have had a really good year, and we counted 42 of them on the water, which is certainly the most I’ve ever seen in one place. Wow!
We did see an eagle, but it kept its distance, and my sister found me this osprey instead. We also watched a second osprey head out for breakfast and come back with a nice big fish in short order.
The bushes along the causeway that splits the reservoir were full of little birds, and we saw waxwings, orioles, and goldfinches, but this eastern kingbird let me have the nicest picture.
We counted over a dozen cormorants perched in the trees over the island where the herons had nested last summer, and here’s one drying off after the sun finally reached down to the water.
Finally, back to the bushes, here’s my first Canada warbler of the fall migration. Woo Hoo!
Sorry about the radio silence lately. An odd confluence of events and conditions out here have really put a damper on my picture taking this week, but I finally had some luck this morning.
Besides the American crows and blue jays we see in Estabrook, I see two more corvids regularly out here. This first one is a common raven that I photographed while I was standing on the front steps of my folks’ house, and I’m a little surprised to see them here but can find no report of one ever being spotted in Milwaukee County. They seem simply not interested in a big swath of the south and central US, so I might never get to see one of these magnificent beaks back home. Darn.
Here, a second one has joined it to ask for a piece.
And here they both are checking out how it tastes.
Speaking of morsels, here’s a young-looking green heron, still sporting its spots, with a small frog it caught but that it doesn’t seem to know what to do with now.
Here’s one of the latest in the long line of invasive species we’ve managed to bring to our shores, a spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula), on my folks’ front lawn. It appears that they haven’t yet reached Milwaukee, but I suspect, as with the emerald ash borer before it, that is simply a matter of time.
Finally, we’ve been to a couple of cemeteries this week to visit family graves, and I was pleasantly surprised to find both places full of eastern bluebirds. It appears that they like to perch on headstones to watch for bugs in the lawn onto which they can pounce. If only they knew, they might consider themselves lucky that they got named after their striking color and not after where people spot them, as the chimney swifts and barn owls have.
The weather is supposed to be nice this weekend, and my sister has off of work, so I have a hope that we’ll get to visit someplace interesting to see who lives there. Wish me luck!
There has been quite a change in the weather overnight out here in Connecticut. Sure, it was cloudy yesterday, but temps were in the high 80s, and it felt as though the humidity percentage was, too. This morning, however, when my sister and I set out, it was still cloudy, but temps were in the low 60s, and it was very windy. By 10:30 am, the temperature has “soared” to 65, and the trees are still swaying in the breeze. Sheesh! Good thing I packed a sweater.
Anyway, I poured through the pictures I did manage to take, and I think I found three that are at least interesting, if not so pretty. This first one shows a scene from the pond between the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail and a “wholesale distributor” called Bozzuto’s. It’s the same spot where we saw the river otters last winter, but it looks quite different in the summer. Just in this one picture, there are two or three mallards on the right, a pair of wood ducks in the middle, and a double crested cormorant on the left. That’s in addition to the Canada geese, green herons, and one spotted sandpiper that didn’t get in the shot. Not bad for a shallow pond surrounded on three sides by parking lots and warehouses, eh?
Here’s one of the green herons looking for its breakfast.
Finally, a couple miles south, there’s another, smaller body of water that also probably connected with the old canal, and we counted nearly two dozen wood ducks. Most were foraging, preening, or otherwise ignoring us, but this one wasn’t quite so trusting.
The clouds are supposed to stick with us for tomorrow, but at least the wind will die down, so maybe I’ll have some better luck.
I couldn’t make it into Estabrook Park this morning because we’re off to Connecticut to see my folks, and I doubt very much that I’ll have a chance to get any pictures there today, so here are a few leftovers from the amazing August we’ve been having so far.
If not top of the list, then surely on the podium at least, has got to be the river otter who came to eat our crayfish back on August 8th. As I mentioned that day, I got to watch it catch and eat crayfish for a full ten minutes, and in that time, I did manage to capture one more image in which you can tell the subject is a river otter. Plus, look how white its teeth are.
Here’s an interesting glimpse at the ruby-throated hummingbird on the 11th as it turned to check for threats just before taking off to go sip some more nectar from the cup plants.
Of the two magnificent garden spiders we saw on Thursday, I could only find the one in the meadow at the north end yesterday, and it somehow avoided collecting any dew this time.
As I was searching for butterflies at the pollinator garden yesterday, something shot up and perched in a tree above. I hoped it might be a butterfly, but it took me a while to find it, and when I eventually did, here’s what I got for my efforts. In case you don’t recognize it, that’s one of the hundreds of northern dog-day cicadas that have been filling the air with their melodic call all month.
It was a nice morning in Estabrook Park, and things are starting to look a little closer to normal at the river. The sand bags placed to allow work on our side of the falls are just starting to poke through the water, and it is now possible to walk along the river trail from the falls to the north end while only getting muddy but not wet, and the mud isn’t deep, just slippery.
At the north end, at least one belted kingfisher is back to catching fish out of the river.
At the flowers behind the dog park, I finally got a picture of a red admiral. In previous years, they have been one of the most plentiful butterflies in the park, but they have been oddly scarce this year.
With all the competition lately, the monarchs have had to up their game, and this one did just that.
Finally, at the weeds beside the southern soccer fields, this critter gave me a bit of cognitive dissonance as it clearly looked like a moth, but it also scampered around the blossoms in broad daylight like a butterfly.
It would even pause on a blossom, as though it were feeding, but I could never spot a proboscis, so I don’t know how it was getting any nectar. Anyway, it turns out to be our very first corn earworm moth (Helicoverpa zea), and I read that “the larvae … [are] a major agricultural pest. Since it feeds on many different plants [it] has been given many different common names, including the cotton bollworm and the tomato fruitworm.”
Lastly, the goldfinch are starting to pick apart the pods of thistle seeds.
It was nearly a picture-perfect day in Estabrook, and the clear skies let me get into the park nice and early. I don’t know if we were there before the guy who runs his German shepherd loose over the soccer fields every morning, or if the deer have just learned to wait until he and his dog are gone, and I just got lucky with my timing, but I sure did enjoy the rare treat of watching them mosey across the fields and stop at this fruit tree on the other side of the parkway to grab some sweets. The bucks antlers are asymmetrical, and I wonder if he’s the same one we’ve seen before.
Just a bit farther norther, where the bluff squeezes the paved path up against the parkway, look who I found on the osprey’s lamp post, the first kestrel we’ve seen in a while.
At the pond, I found eight wood ducks, only one hooded merganser, and no belted kingfishers or green herons. Thank goodness this young great blue heron gave me a picture to take.
At the river, it appears that the water has finally receded another foot, after seeming to hold steady since Monday, and more of the river path was accessible for a change. I don’t know if that is why this pair of kingfishers were back at the upstream island, or if they just needed a break from all the commotion on the pond, but here they are.
In the wild flower meadow, the big new arrival is this stunning yellow garden spider with its trademarked zig-zag stabilimenta. It appears bejeweled because it is still soaked with dew. What a sight, eh? If it looks less than impressive in your email client or on my website, you know what to do.
At the stand of cup plants and joe-pye weed behind the dog park, the red-spotted purples keep getting thicker, and I believe I could count six today. Here’s one posing perfectly, …
and here are a couple more paying more attention to each other than to me. You can even see part of a fourth one in the bottom of the image and behind the focal plane.
Meanwhile, hackberry emperors were doing nearly the same thing at the pollinator garden. They’re a little smaller and flit a little faster, so I had a harder time counting them, but I’m sure there were at least six, …
and some of them also paired up. I find it wild that I didn’t see my first one until the summer of 2023, I didn’t see one at all in 2024 and had to make do with a tawny emperor, but this summer they are thick as thieves. The red-spotted purples haven’t been quite as scarce in the past, but their increase in numbers this summer is equally remarkable.
The odd coincidences just kept coming because I found only my second yellow garden spider of the year in the weeds beside the soccer fields, and it has had enough morning sun by then to be all dried out, but this image will also improve with magnification.
Finally, if the spiders creep you out, here’s a nice tiger swallowtail to cleanse your palette. The color scheme is similar, but somehow arranged in a less-scary pattern. Anyway, this one doesn’t have the fancy row of blue blotches along the trailing edge of its hind wings, so it’s a male, and the one we saw on Monday was a female.
We had a nice turnout for the Friends of Estabrook Park picnic yesterday afternoon, and our reward, besides the free beer, good music, and great company, was this amazing rainbow after a light shower rolled through.
The weather was back to being beautiful by this morning with mild temps, nearly still air, and clear blue skies. This great blue heron surprised me and a couple of other onlookers when it landed in a tree right over the beer garden. Sadly, it was about 12 hours too late for the free beer, but honestly, it probably wasn’t there for the beer.
Meanwhile, this green heron was intently fishing on the pond.
Oddly enough, this wood duck hen was the only bird who I saw have some good luck with fishing this morning. I’ve seen them catch and eat tadpoles, but I did not know that they will do the same with crayfish.
Here it is again providing us with another look at its catch.
The most interesting sight in the meadow at the north end was this gone-by Queen Anne’s lace blossom hosting both a sleeping golden northern bumble bee, on the right and which we have seen before, and a twice-stabbed stink bug (Cosmopepla lintneriana), on the left and which I didn’t even know existed until today.
In the flowers at the southwest corner of the dog park, the red-spotted purples have gotten so thick (I counted at least three) that they’ve resorted to sharing blossoms.
The monarchs were also thick, but they somehow managed to keep just one to a blossom.
Well, the river is still crazy high, and it’s raining again this morning, so even though I did wander around in Estabrook for a while between showers, we’re gonna hafta go to the archives for some images this morning. Luckily, the pond and pollinator gardens were pretty fruitful yesterday, so we don’t have to go back too far.
Here’s one more look at the female ruby-throated hummingbird at the cup plant blossoms behind the dog park. I don’t know why the WordPress rendering of some pictures looks so much worse than others, but this is one of those cases, and you know what to do.
I did see a couple of pearl crescent butterflies in the meadow at the north end again yesterday, but I was glad to find one finally in the pollinator garden as well.
Here’s another look at the hackberry emperor, but of the top/in/dorsal side of its wings this time.
Finally, there were red-spotted purples at both stands of cup plant, and this is one from the pollinator garden.
I’d love to tell you that the weather is going to be beautiful for the Friends of Estabrook Park picnic in the beer garden this afternoon, but I don’t want you to think of me as a fibber. Instead, let me just say that temps are predicted to be only in the high 70s, the chance of showers is under 50%, and they do have a lot of covered tables, so that’s pretty good, given the recent past. Plus, the most recent invite I received explicitly states “Feel free to bring new friends! We are usually seated in the southeast corner,” so I hope to see you there.
Compared to the heat waves and torrential downpours we’ve had already this summer, the weather was pretty nice in Estabrook Park this morning. The partly cloudy skies even let the sun through once in a while, which lit up this young great blue heron fishing on the pond very nicely.
I couldn’t find the green heron, but after Jenny, Kathy, and Lisa joined me for this week’s wildlife walk, they quickly found it for me. Thanks!
The main event at the pond, however, was the appearance of a third belted kingfisher and the response it elicited from the other two. There was a lot of shouting and flitting around, …
but my favorite was when one perched and spread its wings while shouting at another, which happened several times. It was quite the display!
The river was down about three or four feet, and the boardwalk, which had been under water yesterday morning, was now drying out, but the water was still rushing by just below it, and we didn’t see a bird on or in it, even when John and Dave joined us in the 8 a.m. wave.
After eventually calling it a morning, I headed home, and on my way, I stopped at the stand of flowers at the southwest corner of the dog park, and I was happy to find the eastern tiger swallowtail still there. This time it even let us have a look at the upper/inner/dorsal side of its wings.
There were also a couple red-spotted purples and a monarch, but the big surprise was catching a glimpse of this ruby-throated hummingbird sampling the same cup plant blossoms as we’ve seen the butterflies on.
Even better, it perched so I could slow my shutter way down, and the background gave us a bit of a break from the bright gray sky. This image came out especially nice, despite what WordPress is showing you, and if you want to see all the detail, you know the drill.
After a short break, it resumed feeding, and this time I was a little better prepared to capture the scene, even if the background didn’t really cooperate.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 
