We left Milwaukee before sunrise this morning, we don’t land in Guatemala until 1:30pm, so I don’t have much hope of getting any new pictures for you today. Instead, let me show you a couple of my favorites from our visit the Brazilian Amazon back in 2023.
Well, it got even colder overnight, down to -6°F by sunrise, but the wind stayed about the same as yesterday, so not too strong, and the sky stayed clear, so there was plenty of sun, and it was a very pretty morning in Estabrook Park, despite the supposed -25°F windchill.
Most of the critters, however, seemed to have no time to appreciate how pretty it was, and they were probably just busy staying alive. One possible exception was this male house finch by the pond, who must have felt full and warm enough to spend his time singing a little tune.
I also heard some black-capped chickadees, but this one was quite focused on foraging instead. So focused, in fact, that it let me stand about ten feet away for several minutes and try to capture it during the few moments when it looked like it was posing for pictures.
Here it is again.
That’s the whole show for today, I’m afraid, and I won’t have an Estabrook Park update for you until later next week, because Anne has another little trip planned, and she’s letting me tag along again. As usual, I’ll bring my camera with me, and I’ll try to share as we go, but I can’t make any guarantees about getting pictures or having the connectivity to post them. Wish us luck!
It really was +1° at sunrise this morning, but winds were a little lighter than forecast, at 11 mph, and the sky was crystal clear, so it was a very nice time to be in Estabrook Park. One other birder was hardy or foolhardy enough, as the case may be, to come out and join our weekly wildlife walk, and we saw 17 bird species together, but I don’t believe we saw another person in the park.
We stopped by the pond first, which was noisy with dozens of house finches and house sparrows, but here’s a lone robin keeping quiet and basking in the sun at the north end.
At the river, we did glimpse the hermit thrush, and here’s a male red-bellied woodpecker, but the catbird also kept out of sight.
There were still a few common mergansers on the slivers of open river water, but this trio of common goldeneye hens made a nicer picture.
Since that’s it for the pictures I managed to take today, here’s a look at the young bald eagle that flew upstream over the river yesterday morning and spooked all the mallards into the air.
Temps were in the low twenties, and it was windy, cloudy, and snowy this morning in Estabrook Park. Happily, the clouds and the snow they were dropping moved out by about 8:30, and it turned into not too bad of a morning. By then I had reached the pond, and this septet of mourning doves were lined up on a railing to greet me.
A bit closer, this male downy woodpecker was busily checking the sticks for something to eat.
I did see the young white-crowned sparrow and a few white-throated sparrows in the woods on the east side of the pond, but they were still busy foraging, so I took a picture instead of this female cardinal, who appeared to be on break and perhaps digesting a belly already full of seeds.
Finally, on my way back south, I got a nice look at one of our hermit thrushes as it warmed its toes in the seep that comes out of the side of the bluff near the bottom of stairway nine, and which it seems to have started treating as its own personal hot tub.
Lastly, the Winter Break Milwaukee event at Havenwoods State Forest yesterday afternoon appears to have been quite a success, despite the snowy weather. I saw folks outside on dog sleds, fat-tire bikes, and snow shoes. There were plenty of activities inside, too. Kudos to Kate Pociask for organizing it.
That open grassland also attracted this darling American kestrel, and his orange breast and blue cap mark him as a male. He even bobbed his tail for us as he perched there, as advertised.
Lastly, here’s a Queen Anne’s lace blossom, long gone to seed and then picked clean by birds, that did an impressive job of capturing a snowball.
For folks who came on the bird walk, I’ve posted on flickr all the pictures I took but didn’t use here.
As for the weekly wildlife walk in Estabrook tomorrow morning, the current forecast calls for sun, but +1°F with 13 mph winds, so it is expected to feel like -17°. I’ll be there, of course, ’cause the critters still haven’t learned to count themselves, and ya’ll are welcome, but I hope no one feels obligated to join us.
The second batch of snow this week arrived overnight, and now we’ve got close to ten inches on the ground in Estabrook Park. Plus, this storm isn’t through with us yet, and so the clouds are still super thick. The air was almost still, however, and temps are approaching freezing, so it was a wonderful morning for a hike in the park anyway.
On my way north, I found our riverside hermit thrush in its usual spot, near the bottom of stairway nine.
My first big surprise of the morning is that the great horned owl put in a repeat appearance on the southern island, and it was way less buried in the sticks than yesterday.
At the pond, I did see a fox sparrow, and the young white-crowned kept out of sight, but the star was this white-throated sparrow plucking seeds from the sumac.
Finally, as I returned to the river on my way back south, look who decided to show up, our “rare” catbird, and it might have put on its best show for us yet.
That’s it for this morning, and now I’m off to Havenwoods State Forest for the Winter Break Milwaukee, where Bird City Milwaukee will be leading a couple of 1-hour bird walks at 1 and 2 pm. I’ll be there till 4pm, so come on out if you are able, dress for the weather, and I hope I’ll see you there.
The weather forecaster on the news last evening claimed that the new snow on the ground would help temperatures drop overnight, and the +3°F we had this morning doesn’t prove him wrong. The air was almost still, however, so both Anne and I didn’t think it felt too bad out there. The sun’s effort to burn a hole through the building cloud cover for a while, was valiant but in vain, so the pictures are a bit grey today.
Happily, yesterday was so pretty, I have plenty of pictures left over from then, so let’s start with this black-capped chickadee by the river.
This morning, I did see the catbird again, but this is exactly the kind of grey picture I was warning you about.
For a break from the grey, here’s a dark-eyed junco, from yesterday and also by the river, just before it gulps down that bright red spindle seed.
The big surprise this morning, which just happened to coincide with a high-water mark of morning sunlight, was finding a great horned owl on the southern island again for the first time since New Years Eve. I can’t tell if this is one of the pair that we hope have gone off to nest, and this is just the equivalent of sleeping on the couch, or if this is a third owl, but whatever the case, I sure was happy to see it.
This morning, I could only find one hermit thrush, the one by the river, and it appears to be warming its toes in the water seeping out of the ground near the bottom of stairway nine. Clever bird, or desperate.
Finally, to end on a sunnier note, here’s a male house finch from yesterday with its beak covered in the snow it was just gobbling down from that fresh pile beside it.
Lastly, I see the forecast for tomorrow afternoon is 31° and “snow showers,” so Havenwoods State Forest should be a regular winter wonderland for the Winter Break Milwaukee. As I’ve mentioned before, Bird City Milwaukee will be leading a couple of 1-hour bird walks at 1 and 2 pm, and I’ll be there from 12 to 4pm, so come on out if you are able, dress for the weather, and I hope I’ll see you there.
First, the snow really did come, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that we received a full eight inches in Estabrook Park. I know some locals are about as thrilled with it as the mourning dove looked yesterday, but I am very happy. Even better, temps were in the low teens, winds were light, and there was not a cloud in the sky, so I would have had to work at it to take a bad picture today. Even the mourning doves looked happier this morning, but I suppose that could simply be because they’ve found each other.
As for the rarities implied by the title, the grey catbird, whom I haven’t seen since the first of the month, and I haven’t been able to show you since January, finally put in an appearance. “Welcome back, Sweetie!”
Once again, I couldn’t find anything to photograph at the north end, even on a day like today, but the pond made up for it. Here’s a female northern cardinal sampling the sumac.
Not to be outdone, a dark-eyed junco also posed on the sumac and even managed to squeeze in some snow.
Finally, I am now sure that we have two hermit thrushes, one by the river, and a second one at the pond. I saw both this morning, and ebird now considers them to be rare as well. Here’s the one at the pond posing like a pro. I wonder if they know about each other.
Lastly, I saw several birds enjoying the fresh snow, and here’s a robin just about to take a big bite.
It sure is snowing in Estabrook now, but it really didn’t get going until about 9am. Thus, I had nearly two hours this morning to take some pictures, and here’s what I got.
I was checking for the song sparrow or winter wren by the river, and there were a couple of birds, perhaps downy woodpeckers, incessantly making distress calls, so I tried to find what they were distressed about. As I approached the edge of the water, I inadvertently spooked this Cooper’s hawk, who flew up into the big maple tree that grows there.
Besides sporting two ankle bracelets, which the others we’ve been seeing lately do not appear to have, it kept wiping its beak on that branch, which got me to wonder what it was wiping off its beak, so I looked over the edge, and there I found a fresh common merganser hen carcass lying on the ice.
It was pretty grewsome, so I’ll spare you the picture, but I immediately wondered if it might have succumbed to the new avian flu that’s going around, since I highly doubt the diminutive Cooper’s did in the heftier merganser all by itself.
I called DNR, but they said they are not yet concerned about single birds, so I used a long stick to bring the carcass up to the dumpster in the maintenance yard, to at least keep other birds off of it, and went on my way while hoping for the best.
I didn’t see anything to photograph at the north end or the pond, and I only took my camera back out when I found the song sparrow right about where I had been looking for it earlier. You can see that the snow had really started to accumulate by then.
I didn’t see the winter wren at all today, but I do have one more nice picture from yesterday, so here you go. Don’t its claws look like they are from a much larger bird that the wren is merely perched on them?
Finally, I opted to go home along the paved path atop the bluff, instead of trying my luck on the hilly river trail in these conditions. At the top of stairway nine, I gave one more look into the bushes for the catbird, and found this mourning dove collecting snow and looking less than thrilled with that development.
This snow storm is forecast to be done by tomorrow morning, and the storm predicted for Friday should be mostly over by Saturday morning, so Havenwoods State Forest should be a regular winter wonderland for the Saturday afternoon Winter Break Milwaukee. As I mentioned yesterday, Bird City Milwaukee will be leading a couple of 1-hour bird walks at 1 and 2 pm “through the quieter blue trail that leads to the small pond. [They have] binoculars and monoculars they can loan you for free if you bring a piece of collateral to surrender, like an ID.” I’ll be there from 12 to 4pm, so come on out if you are able, and I’ll see you there.
It was a bit cooler than yesterday in Estabrook Park this morning, but the breeze felt lighter, and the sun came out after a bit, so it was another very nice time to be looking for critters.
Lastly, as part of Winter Break Milwaukee, Bird City Milwaukee will be leading a couple of 1-hour bird walks at 1 and 2 pm on Saturday, Feb 15, in Havenwoods State Forest “through the quieter blue trail that leads to the small pond. [They have] binoculars and monoculars they can loan you for free if you bring a piece of collateral to surrender, like an ID.” I’ll be there from 12 to 4pm, so come on out if you are able, and I’ll see you there.
It was a beautiful February morning in Estabrook Park, with temps in the mid-teens, a very light breeze out of the west, and a crystal blue sky overhead. Even better, four hardy souls came out to join me on our Weekly Wildlife Walk. Despite all the fancy sparrows by the pond, the winter wren, and the catbird all taking the morning off, we did manage to observe 21 bird species before folks had to get on with their days.
I did not, however, manage to take any pictures, so after we said our goodbyes in the parking lot, I headed for the north end to see who I might yet find, and this gorgeous, mature Cooper’s hawk is who was waiting for me there. “Thanks, Darlin’!” It’s belly feathers seem a little less pristine than usual, and I wonder if that might be due to a recent breakfast.
Then I stopped by the pond, one last time, in hopes that the sparrows had woken up by then, but those stinkers were still keeping out of sight. Instead, our cold red squirrel was out for its usual warm-up in the sun.
The big surprise at the pond today was spotting this hermit thrush. We had already seen the one that I often see at the river earlier in the morning, and I can’t tell if it had since flown up to the pond, or if this is a second thrush. Either way, it sure was nice to see one bathed in the warm morning sunlight for a change.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 