Signs of Life in Estabrook Park

Lake Michigan delivers again…

In celebration of Mother’s Day, I’m sure, and World Migratory Bird Day, which was actually yesterday, the Milwaukee Birders planned a little show-and-tell event at Lakeshore State Park this morning, and I was ready for a change of pace, so I rode my bike down at sunrise to wait for them to arrive.

Just kidding. Not about riding my bike down, of course, but I went early to see who I could see before the park go busy, not just to wait for the Milwaukee Birders to show up.

Anyway, the sun hadn’t even come up yet as I went by Juneau Lagoon, and I had such good luck last time, that I stopped to take another peek. Well, look who was peeking back. Yup, a black-crowned night heron, again, but this time, as I tried to sneak a little closer, I inadvertently spooked a full dozen other herons that were perched in the trees behind me. Wow and Sorry!

After the night herons, I rode just a bit farther south and then traipsed across the open field left after all the trees were removed, to get a better look at the water and shoreline. Well, it appears that a pair of killdeer have built a nest in that field somewhere, and when I got too close, they both started doing their best “broken-wing” display. Here’s the nicest picture I could manage of that.

When I finally made it to Lakeshore State Park, the sun was up, and that shone some nice light on the first purple martin I’ve seen in Milwaukee County.

There were a couple of lesser scaups and one female ruddy duck in the “quiet water basin”, but we’ve seen them before, and the better show was in the air over Lake Michigan. There, mixed in with the herring and ring-billed gulls, were a few small terns, and their relatively stubby little tails makes them common terns (Sterna hirundo), which I haven’t seen since I was in South Holland, and who appear to be just passing through, which is befitting of the day.

Once in a while, one of the terns would look much bigger than the others, with a beak to match, and that’s because it was a Caspian tern, which we have seen before, but not in flight like this. They are also just visiting.

Then, as if it heard us talking about bigger and smaller black-and-white birds, this monster drifted over, an American white pelican, “one of the largest North American birds“. We’ve seen them before as well, especially at Kohler-Andrae State Park, and I’ve even glimpsed them flying over Estabrook Park, but this is the first picture I’ve managed in Milwaukee County. We’re not even in their natural range, so what an extra special surprise. Woo hoo!

Back on the ground, here’s my first Savannah sparrow of the year, which Katie spotted for me. “Thanks, Katie!”

Finally, the only blossoms I saw open this morning were dandelions, so let’s go back to the Shorewood Nature Preserve last week for your blossom of the day, these dainty-looking cut-leaved toothworts (Cardamine concatenata). It is claimed, with a reliable-looking source, that “the roots can be washed, chopped and ground in vinegar to be used as a horseradish substitute.” Yum.

Lastly, the forecast for our weekly wildlife walk tomorrow morning looks excellent, and now that the sun rises at 5:31 a.m., some folks have expressed interest in starting earlier, but not everyone shares that interest. Thus, I will swing by the parking lot at 7 a.m. to pick up the early risers, and then we will all swing by again at 8 a.m. for anyone who needs that extra hour of sleep. Feel free to join us at either time.

More new faces, and a shorebird trifecta, hurray!

It was much warmer in Estabrook Park this morning, and there was no hint of frost. Plus, the skies were still clear, so I was able to start nice and early, before the wind came up.

My first surprise came at the pond, where I spotted our first eastern kingbird of the year.

Below the kingbird, and on the water, I had noticed a sandpiper, and I thought it was a solitary, but after I thought I had the best picture I was going to get from the kingbird, I was pleasantly surprised to find that one sandpiper had turned into two, and the one on the right is indeed a solitary, but the one on the left is a spotted. How convenient of them to provide us with this guide for noticing the difference between the two! Besides the namesake spots on its breast, the spotted also has a distinct eyeline, which the solitary lacks.

As I neared the upstream island in the river, I heard a now-familiar call, like a robin with a slightly-scratchy throat, and I excitedly hurried up the bluff to find our first scarlet tanager of the year.

Out on the water, a few ~~lesser yellowlegs were back again~~, more solitary sandpipers. ~~bringing our shorebird species count for the morning to three.~~

Back up on the bluff, our first chestnut-sided warbler of the year put on a nice little show.

I could also hear a killdeer calling, and I even saw the one that hangs out farther downstream, but I didn’t take its picture today. Instead, to round out our ~~quartet~~ trio of shorebirds, here’s that killdeer on Tuesday.

Finally, back up on the bluff, here’s our first yellow-throated vireo of the year.

Lastly, your “blossom” of the day is this American yellow morel ascocarp, or fruiting body. I hear they’re tasty, especially when fried in butter with garlic. “Yum!”

Then I hustled home to drop off my camera and binoculars in time to join the Friends of Estabrook Park weedout, and we mostly pulled garlic mustard from the area recently cleared of buckthorn by the southern parking lot. If you’re thinking to yourself, “Dang, I wished I had know, because I would have helped,” then you’re in luck, because they’re having another one on Sunday, May 18, from 9-12.

The wind takes a breather…

The skies stayed clear, and the air stayed cold, but the wind almost stopped, so it was a very nice morning in Estabrook Park, despite the hoar frost on the grass in places.

My first big surprise came at the far northwest end, where I had gone to check on the pigeon chicks and see if any barn swallows had started nesting yet. I couldn’t really see the chicks today, and there were no barn swallows yet, but check out this brood of seventeen (17!) goslings I got to watch steam by. My bet is that this is the result of two or more broods combining into a crèche, as we’ve seen before, and one goose did not lay seventeen eggs, but still, that’s a lot of goslings.

On my way back downstream, and back on shore, I found my first palm warbler willing to sit for a portrait.

Farther downstream, a great horned owl was in, but this picture from Wednesday, which I didn’t have room to show you then, came out better than anything I could manage today.

The next big surprise came near the south end. There was a steady stream of sparrows flitting north beside the river, and most appeared to be white-throated, but this little cutie behaved slightly differently, and that’s because it is our first Lincoln’s sparrow of the year. Hurray!

As I was crossing the soccer fields on my way toward the exit, I spotted a bird in a tree over the southern parking lot again, but this was no vesper sparrow. Instead, it was this young and quite lightly-colored red-tailed hawk.

Finally, the nice still air today allowed the bugs to waft nice and high into the air and trees, and the warblers followed them, so I didn’t have as much luck with pictures as I did yesterday. Fortunately, I have a few extra pictures from yesterday, when everyone was keeping close to the ground, and here’s a female northern flicker who couldn’t have struck a better pose for us.

Lastly, your blossom of the day is this jack-in-the-pulpit, which is the first one I’ve seen this year.

Spring hits pause…

There was a stiff breeze out of the northeast this morning, which reminded me, and anyone else out in it, just how cold the waters of Lake Michigan still are. The windchill temperature was supposed to be 31°F at sunrise. Yikes!

Luckily for our resident eastern screech-owl, the opening of its nook faces the southwest, so it might have felt as snug as a bug in a rug.

The sky was nice and clear, though, and the sun is pretty warm this time of year, so if you could find a sunny spot that was out of the wind, such as our riverbank at the north end, it felt quite comfortable. Perhaps that’s what this American redstart, our first of the year, was singing about.

Another new arrival who had found a similar spot was this male rose-breasted grossbeak.

As did this Nashville warbler, of which I’ve seen a few already, but who haven’t let me get a nice picture until today.

Goslings hatched beside the river have the advantage of automatically being out of the cold wind, at least for today, and here’s one of several broods I saw. The ones at the pond are still doing fine and are already nearly twice this size.

Even the Baltimore orioles, who usually keep to the treetops, were down near eye-level for a change.

Finally, your blossoms of the day are these elegantly understated prairie trilliums, aka toadshades, but it was way to cold for toads today.

Lastly, the forecast for tomorrow looks similar to today, except that the winds are supposed to be 2 mph instead of 12 mph. Woo hoo!

Some highs and lows…

It has gotten cool and breezy now, but earlier today the weather was as nice in Estabrook as yesterday, so I was crossing the Oak Leaf Trail into the park just after 5:30 a.m. There’s a guy who likes to let his German shepherd run loose on the soccer fields, and some days I get there before they do, and some days they’re already gone before I arrive, but today they were just a couple hundred feet in front of me.

I’d rather not tangle with a loose dog, especially one that I’ve seen act aggressively before, and I don’t expect to see much wildlife in their vicinity anyway, so I cut straight north along the parkway, and it turns out I may not be the only one who’d rather avoid them, because here are a couple of deer hustling across the parkway to get to the quieter side.

I could tell that yesterday was a nice, warm day because the path down to the river was loaded with tiny silk threads left at eye level by various tiny critters for the first time this year, which is always a treat, and the riverbank, which I had just picked up yesterday morning, was littered with fresh fishing line, other tackle, and empty bait containers. I was fewer than thrilled about that.

As I went about collecting the latter, I came across this robin tangled in some line that was also tangled in some low brush. Luckily, after the gosling incident, I keep a pair of tiny safety shears in my camera harness, and I was able to free it pretty quickly. Unfortunately, the bird managed to free itself from my grasp before I could finish getting all the line off its left ankle, which you can just make out in the image below. I’m sure it wasn’t tied in a knot, so let’s hope that now, without any tension to keep it on, it will just come loose and fall off. Dang.

Anyway, as I bent down to pick up the line I had just cut off the robin, look who I found hiding in the grass just off the trail, our first amphibian of the year, an American toad. Yay! Even better, at the north end I could hear that a few of them had started singing. Fantastic!

The trees beside the river at the north end were full of warblers, but they kept up high, and none of them appeared interested in getting their portrait taken today. Instead, this quartet of hungry, lesser yellowlegs did quite a nice job of posing for my camera on an exposed mud flat beside the upstream island.

In addition to the first amphibian, I also saw my first vireo of the year, this gorgeous blue-headed vireo, who was kind, or bold, enough to perch right at my eye level.

Finally, on my way back downstream, the killdeer who’s been hanging out on our riverbank lately was at it again, and today it let me sneak one of the nicest killdeer pictures I believe I’ve managed to take.

Lastly, your blossoms of the day are these beautiful large white trilliums, which are open in various places throughout the park.

PS: Sorry about the venting above. I am usually able to let that stuff go, at least by the time I write my post, but the two situations in quick succession really stuck with me today. Yeah, I know it’s an urban park and not some remote wildlife refuge, but I still wish park goers would follow the few rules we do have and be considerate of other park users and denizens. Where’s the “live and let live” in chasing deer and literally trapping birds in accidental snares?

It finally feels like summer might be right around the corner…

What a difference 24 hours can make. Yesterday morning, I wore a poofy coat for warmth, and I was glad I did. This morning, I wore only a windbreaker over a thin fleece, and I had to strip it off before I got home.

The critters in Estabrook Park really seemed to respond to the warmth as well, and here are the seven goslings on the west lawn by the pond napping without Mom keeping them warm. Instead, she was busy preening, along with Dad, just out of frame.

Meanwhile, I spotted my first river goslings of the year, four separate broods, in fact, and here’s one that just hopped off the downstream island with eleven!

Just upstream of the goslings and on our shore, here’s my first spotted sandpiper of May. Unlike the solitary, which we just saw yesterday, these don’t go far, and we can hope to see them on and off all summer. Yay!

A bit farther upstream, here’s our first catbird of the season, but not the year. You may recall that crazy one we had hanging out in January and February.

Near the catbird, but a lot higher in a tree was a legit new arrival for the year, our first indigo bunting. I had heard their song as soon as I reached the islands in the river, but it took me to the upstream end of the upstream island to finally lay eyes on one.

On my way back home, I was thinking to myself, “wow, that’s almost all of them. All except for the flycatchers.” And then I heard this little cutie, our first flycatcher of the year, specifically a least flycatcher.

Finally, your blossom of the day is this tiny self-heal, which is feeding and being pollinated by our first bumblebee of the year, which I believe is a two-spotted bumblebee (Bombus bimaculatus).

The forecast for tomorrow is for more of the same, so I can’t wait to see who arrives next.

I finally make it back into Estabrook…

Despite being back in Milwaukee yesterday, I had one more stop to make before going back to Estabrook Park this morning. The Milwaukee Birders were visiting the Shorewood Nature Preserve yesterday morning, and I couldn’t really let them bird my back yard without saying “hi”, now could I? Plus, it gave me a chance to see my very first Forsters’s tern (Sterna forsteri) and take this fuzzy picture of it. I also got my first Caspian tern picture, but it wasn’t as nice.

Meanwhile, back on shore, our first Swainson’s thrush of the season was foraging on a gorgeous bed of moss.

When I finally did get back into Estabrook this morning, the clouds were thick, the breeze wasn’t too strong, and it didn’t rain. The first photogenic sight I saw was our first robin’s egg of the season. Hurray!

At the river, a great horned owl was in its old usual spot on the downstream island. The screech was in, too, but its picture came out about as nice as the Caspian terns’.

And our first solitary sandpiper of the year was foraging on the exposed river bottom beside the upstream island. “Welcome back, Sweetie!”

Below the falls, a killdeer was back on our side of the river for the first time since the start of April.

At the pond, all seven goslings looked hale and hearty, and here they are down for their morning nap.

Finally, your blossoms of the day are these Virginia strawberries. “Yum!”

Lastly, we had a dozen folks for our wildlife walk, and we identified 41 bird species.

Utah and Florida wrap-up…

Before I wound up in Florida, my sister and I had one more opportunity to look for wildlife in Utah, at the Sullivan Virgin River Park in Washington City, but I haven’t had a chance to tell you about it until now, and “yes,” that’s the same Virgin River into which we saw the dipper dipping.

I was thrilled to get a picture finally of this Lucy’s warbler (Leiothlypis luciae), and that hint of a “rusty cap” on the top of his head marks him as an adult male. We heard them on our hike into the Grand Canyon, and I managed to spot one in a tree beside the Colorado River, but I forgot to haul my camera along on that trip.

There were also several verdins around, and this one was too busy singing to worry about li’l ol’ me for a change.

The highlight of the morning, however, was finally getting eyes on what ended up being a whole flock of Gambel’s quail. I had seen them before, but my sister hadn’t, so we followed their calls several times in hopes of a glimpse, and it finally paid off.

Then we drove to Vegas to catch our flights, my sister flew home, and Spirit Airlines took me to Orlando. Even better, they let me have 5+ hours of layover, so I had time to look up the nearest park with a water feature and get an Uber driver to take me there. It was the lovely Airport Lakes Park, and it was just 2 miles away from the terminal, as the crow flies, but I’m not a crow, and I’ve learned that Florida does not like me walking on their highways.

Anyway, as soon as I entered the park, I could hear the familiar call of an Osprey, and it didn’t take me long to find the source. Here it is, high atop the lights over the soccer field feeding its chicks.

The park does not provide much access to Lake Warren, which it abuts, other than a pier which is currently closed because of “storm damage,” but looks more like it has simply been out in the elements for a few years without much if any maintenance. Luckily, it seems that I am not the first person to arrive at that conclusion, so side access was pretty easy to find, and my reward for that little bit of rule-breaking was my first glimpse of an anhinga since Brazil. I read that “the word anhinga comes from a’ñinga in the Brazilian Tupi language and means ‘devil bird’ or ‘snake bird’,” so I guess it is fitting that I saw one there first.

The woods between the soccer fields and the lake were full of birds, including black and turkey vultures, red-tailed and red-shouldered hawks, titmice, gnatcatchers, and even a pileated woodpecker, but my favorite picture is of this singing northern parula , whom I hope to see again in Estabrook Park tomorrow. Since I’m looking up the etymology of unusual bird names now, I read that “the common name “parula” ultimately derives from Latin parrula, Tit (bird),” or “a diminutive form of parus, meaning little titmouse.”

As happens, from time to time, the woods weren’t full only of birds. There were also squirrels, a racoon, and plenty of dragonflies. My favorite of the latter has got to be this stunning, roseate skimmer (Orthemis ferruginea).

Finally, your blossom of the day is this beauty, specifically a Virginia meadowbeauty (Rhexia virginica), as far as I can tell.

Lastly, now that I’m back home, I will be able to join you on our weekly wildlife walk in Estabrook Park tomorrow (Monday) morning. Come on out if you can.

Orlando, Florida…

I finally made it home safely this afternoon, but on my way from Las Vegas to Milwaukee, Spirit Airlines was kind enough to gift me a morning of birding in Orlando, Florida, of all places. I don’t have time right now to go into all the details, nor show you all I saw, but I can at least show you this one stunning creature, my very first white ibis (Eudocimus albus). How amazing is that?

That’s all for now, and I’ll have plenty more to show you soon.

Some Utah leftovers while I’m traveling

My sister and I do plan on going out to look for wildlife one more time tomorrow morning, here in scenic Washington, Utah, but even if we find something amazing, I don’t know when I’ll have a chance to write it up, so here are a few more sights from Utah that I haven’t had room to show you yet.

I’ve been seeing Say’s phoebes all trip, but it wasn’t until we were just about to leave Bryce Canyon that this beauty finally let me have a nice picture.

Now that I’ve seen my first lark sparrow, it seems the dam has been broken, and we’ve been seeing them everywhere. Here’s one across the road from the sage thrasher in Loa, Utah.

Speaking of Loa, here’s another mountain bluebird in a slightly less natural setting.

Here’s a colorful grasshopper, that I am currently unable to identify further, that my niece spotted in Arches National Park.

Just because they look so amazing and they let me have some nice pictures, here’s another look at one of the common loons in Otter Creek Reservoir.

Another bird that’s been showing up since the Grand Canyon is the Steller’s jay, but once again, I failed to get a nice picture until this one in Bryce Canyon.

Finally, here’s a northern house wren in Zion National Park, whom I hope to see return to Estabrook Park soon.

Lastly, your blossoms of the day are these gorgeous dark-throated shooting stars (Primula pauciflora) beside the Virgin River in Zion. Maybe our eastern shooting stars will be open by the time I get home.