We made is safely to Austria and took a train into town during our layover. After lunch, when our group broke up to visit various museums, I slipped away to visit Wiener Stadtpark, were I found all kinds of pretty birds.
Here’s an elusive Eurasian blue tit, who just wouldn’t let me get a clear shot.
Here’s a great tit, who wasn’t much more obliging.
There’s a small river, the Wienfluss, that flows right beside the park through town, and here’s a gray wagtail, who was foraging and wagging its tail along the water’s edge.
There were several Eurasian blackbirds lurking in the bushes, but this one was quite bold and stuck all sorts of interesting poses between picking berries.
There’s a little pond in the park, similar in size and even shape to the pond in Estabrook Park, and here’s a gray heron perched atop an ornamental tree beside the pond to avoid the fray of park goers feeding mallards and gulls on the water below.
Here’s one of the gulls, a diminutive black-headed gull, in its non-breeding plumage and holding its own in that fray.
Finally, here’s a great cormorant also perched above the pond.
If everything goes right, my next post should be from Montenegro, so wish me luck!
As I mentioned yesterday, Anne and I are off to the Balkans, and she got us a nice long layover in Vienna along the way, but I probably won’t have an opportunity to write a post again today, so let me show you a few more critters that I have a hope of seeing on this trip.
They have nuthatches there, and they look a bit like our red-breasted nuthatches, but they call them “Eurasian nuthatches” instead.
They also have treecreepers, who receive the same treatment.
And they have siskins, who are a bit more colorful than ours.
Finally, on the water, they have shelducks, which we do get to see in Wisconsin, but only about as often as we get to see wagtails.
With any luck, we’ll finally arrive at a hotel with wifi tomorrow, so I have a hope of showing you what I’ve found so far. Wish me luck!
As I mentioned yesterday, Anne and I are off to the Balkans today. I do have time for a quick visit to Estabrook this morning before we go, but I probably won’t have time to write up what I found, so let me give you a little taste of some of the critters I can hope to see on the trip.
They have robins there, the original “robin”, in fact, but they are not closely related to the ones we have here, not even in the same family, and sized and shaped a lot more like the warblers we have here, so we call them “European robins” to avoid confusion.
It was colder than yesterday in Estabrook Park this morning, with temps in the mid-teens, but the breeze was much lighter, and the clouds were high, thin, and sparce, so the sun was able to take the edge off a bit. Plus, it wasn’t snowing.
At the north end, one pleasant surprise was finding this quintet of common merganser hens, and perhaps they felt some safety in numbers because they were less skittish than the singles or pairs I’ve been seeing so far this winter.
The big surprise, however, was our first pair of common goldeneyes. Woo hoo! I’ve been waiting for weeks, and they are finally here.
After that, I drifted on cloud nine all the way to the pond. There were dozens of house sparrows and house finches, seemingly all chirping at once, but as I searched in vain for a tree, white-throated, or fox sparrow, there was a sudden ruckus on the island, and most of the little birds bolted. The cause was this Cooper’s hawk, who came up empty, and retired to this perch over the near shore. As with the red-tailed hawks on Saturday, you can see, from its dark red eye and lushly barred orange breast, that it’s a mature bird, and I don’t doubt that it will find its breakfast soon enough.
Finally, as I approached the far south end, I was quite surprised to find a beaver up on the ice in this weather. As with the muskrat on Sunday, I thought they waited until a thaw to come out of their burrows to forage for fresh vegetables. At least they’d get fewer icicles on their whiskers that way.
After finishing with that little stick in its paws, it must have had a hankerin’ for something more substantial, and here’s a fun video showing it standing up on its haunches to grab a nice big hunk of bark from that log over its right shoulder.
Here’s a still image, which shows how far it can reach, in case you’re not into video.
Tomorrow, Anne and I head to the Balkans for a little sightseeing. I’ve had some luck there in the past, as you may remember from our trip to Slovenia, so I’ll try to post as I go, but I can’t make any promises.
It was warmer than the past few mornings in Estabrook Park today, with temps in the mid to high 20s, but the wind was really blowing at times, and bands of light snow kept drifting through, so I was thrilled when four intrepid nature enthusiasts joined me for our weekly wildlife walk.
Besides many of the regulars, we spotted a couple of tree sparrows and a white-throated sparrow at the pond and a common merganser hen at the river. When we got back to the parking lot, a couple of crows alerted us to a red-tailed hawk perched high and north of the pond, and I thought that would be a wrap, but three of the four wanted to keep going, so we headed south and toward the river again. That’s when the magic started.
I mentioned to the group that previous groups and I had seen a song sparrow in the grass beside the river from time to time, and this turned out to be one of those times. Even better, the elusive little cutie perched in the open right in front of us, and stayed there long enough for everyone to get a good look. “Thanks, sweetie!”
We looked around a bit more in hopes of spotting a winter wren or the hermit thrush I’ve seen there, but didn’t have any luck, so we headed through the woods back up to the pond. On our way, I saw someone flash overhead and thought, from my brief glimpse, that it might be a woodpecker or a robin, but our luck held, and it parked just beyond the path to pick berries. There I could finally see that it was a hermit thrush instead, whom I haven’t seen since last year. “Welcome back, Cutie!”
That brought our bird count up to 22 species, and by then everyone was ready to go home. Amazingly enough, the red-tailed hawk and the two crows that were trying to convince it to move on were right where we left them, so I headed towards them to see if I could get a picture. Well, four’s a crowd, I guess, and the hawk bugged out with two crows in tow, but it gave them the slip somehow. They continued south, and it came right back to the pond to pose for this picture. The dark red eyes and solid red tail feathers make me think it might be the one we’ve seen at the south end before.
As I walked around the pond in hopes of an even better look, I stopped to enjoy the sight of this hairy woodpecker, who had eluded us earlier. Compare his formidable beak to the relatively diminutive one on the downy woodpecker I showed you yesterday. If I’m trying to decide if a bird I’m looking at is one or the other, I find comparing the beak to the head it is on to be a much better guide than simply trying to decide if I’m looking at the bigger bird or the smaller bird.
By the time I was done with Hairy, the hawk had moved on, so I headed back to the river to make my way home. As I looked around to see if there was anyone else to see, look who I found peeking out of a tree and possibly wondering, “how many dang times is this guy gonna walk by today?!?”
Finally, look who I found lurking in the bushes between the path and the river, our first grey catbird of the new year. “Hello, Darling!” We’ve seen them here in the winter a couple of times before, including just last year on almost the same day, but they’re supposed to be wintering someplace warmer for now, and the folks at ebird consider this a “rare” sighting. Yee haw!
I’ll be away on Monday, the 13th, but I hope some of you’ll come out to see some of these amazing critters without me, and I’ll be back for Monday, the 20th. See you then!
It was about as cold this morning in Estabrook Park as it was yesterday, but the sun struggled to shine through a varying layer of clouds, so there wasn’t much basking going on amongst the critters. For most of them, however, the sun seems to be just a pleasant supplement, and their primary source of warmth comes from the calories they burn. Thus, with fresh seed left by someone in the woods off the northeast corner of the pond, the place was full of little birds.
Here’s a male house sparrow doing its best to conserve the heat put out by the little furnace it has inside.
A nice surprise today was a pair of blue jays who swooped in for a moment.
Many of the finches and sparrows fled when the jays arrived, but this female northern cardinal didn’t even flinch.
I didn’t get a picture of a downy woodpecker today, but I couldn’t resist this scene from yesterday.
I have seen nuthatches picking out seeds by the pond, but I didn’t see this cutie until I was on my way back south along the river.
Finally, the big surprise for today was spotting this muskrat up on the river ice to preen itself at the far south end. Besides that cold-looking red squirrel from yesterday, I’ve hardly seen a mammal since this cold snap started, but this muskrat must have really felt the need to spruce itself up a bit. Temps were in the single digits, and I probably watched it scrub and scratch for a good five minutes before it decided that was good enough and dove back into the water to start swimming upstream. I hope it has a really hot date!
We’re forecast to enjoy a relative heatwave tomorrow, with temps up into the low 20s, so come on out for our weekly wildlife walk if you’re able. As usual, recheck the forecast in the morning, dress for the weather, and I’ll see you there. Oh, and don’t forget to bring the good luck we’re gonna need to spot our first owl of the new year.
The recent freeze in Estabrook Park deepened this morning with temps in the single-digits, and windchills well below 0°F. The skies were clearer than yesterday, on the other hand, and I still don’t see a single cloud this afternoon, so conditions were good for some nice pictures today. Happily, some critters were willing to oblige.
Here’s a white-throated sparrow by the pond who appeared to be as puffed up as possible and singing “the anthem of the boreal forest” to remind itself of warm summer days in Canada.
This dark-eyed junco was too busy foraging to have any time for songs.
There sure as heck weren’t butterflies out today, so I suspect the red-tailed made a try for some warm-blooded breakfast, but it came up empty this time.
The cold continues to settle in, and the breeze is holding steady, so we had a wind-chill of a brisk 1°F this morning in Estabrook Park. Happily, the sun was out, at least for a while, so all that fresh ice floating down river looked nice and sparkly.
The critters continue to be fairly few and far between, unfortunately, so I didn’t take any pictures until I reached the pond. There, as I searched through the house sparrows and house finches in the bushes on the island, for someone more interesting, I could just make out the shape of a larger bird on the back side, which I thought looked about the size of a robin or a mourning dove. I also thought I could see the fringe of a light-colored belly, however, which would rule them out, so who could it be?
Thus, I hustled around to the east side for a better look, and I could hardly believe my luck once I did. There, posing nearly as nicely as its larger cousin just yesterday, was only the third sharp-shinned hawk I believe I’ve ever seen.
Here are the two birds side-by-side in my best attempt to scale the pictures the same, with the Coop from yesterday on the left, and the sharpy from today on the right. Of course, there is no way for me to know exactly how far away from each bird I was, so I could be exaggerating a bit. Nevertheless, in both species, the female is larger than the male, and in sharpies, “females are one-third larger than males.” Thus, a male sharpy could be nearly half the size of a female Coop: 24 cm vs 45 cm.
Finally, the one difference that is pretty clear in the pictures is the tail shape. In the Coop, you can see how the feathers get shorter towards the outer edges, so the tail will appear rounded when the feathers are fanned, while the sharpy feathers that are visible, despite that stupid stick in the way, are the outer ones, and they are the same length, if not longer than the central ones behind them. Thus, the tail will appear less rounded when the feathers are fanned.
Temps were in the low 20s this morning in Estabrook Park, and a good breeze out of the west made them feel like the low teens. Better yet, the few clouds soon drifted away, and we had nice clear, blue skies for the first time since last year. The river was rapidly refreezing, and the critters seemed to need a moment to adjust.
I didn’t see a pretty picture to take until I got to the pond and found this female downy woodpecker digging seeds out of these clumps of sumac.
My first raptor of the new year is this young Cooper’s hawk, who scared off a whole flock of mourning doves as it swooped in, but who now seemed to be taking a moment to enjoy a perch in the warm sun and out of the cool breeze. “Maybe breakfast can wait a bit.”
Finally, at the far south end, I was hoping to spot a blue jay or red-bellied woodpecker, both of whom had kept out of sight all morning, and I checked the river one more time just in case I had missed a bufflehead or goldeneye on my first pass. Look who I found sleeping with a few mallards instead. The duck on the left, with the pretty banding in her feathers, is a female redhead, I believe. We’ve seen drakes once or twice, but I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a hen until now.
Anyway, as I hiked up the bluff from the river and crossed the soccer fields to Wilson Dr, I did hear a red-bellied woodpecker, but the blue jays evaded me for another day.
Now that we’ve started our next trip around the sun, it seems that winter has remembered what its job is. It was back below freezing this morning in Estabrook Park, and the ten-day forecast suggests we’re gonna stay there for a while. Woo hoo!
It could be just a coincidence, but a common merganser hen came in with the cold.
An even bigger surprise, for me at least, was spotting this muskrat up on a branch over the water. I did not know they could or would do that.
Another behavior that I don’t believe I’ve seen before was this red-bellied woodpecker appearing to take a nap on the side of this tree trunk and strategically located out of the breeze. It wasn’t pecking at anything and did glance my way for a moment, but then it just went right back to staring at the bark.
Finally, this robin also appeared to be just relaxing. Perhaps it had been up late celebrating with the woodpecker.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 