Signs of Life in Estabrook Park

Guatemala Day 7

It was another beautiful morning in Antigua, Guatemala, and our B&B doesn’t serve breakfast until 8am, so I had 1.5 glorious hours from sunrise till breakfast to look for critters on the grounds.

My first find this morning was this elusive blue-and-white mockingbird (Melanotis hypoleucus).

This little cutie is a young or female Wilson’s warbler, whom we might hope to spot in Estabrook in just a few weeks.

Back to the locals, this stunner let me have just one shot, and I couldn’t believe my luck when I looked at what I got. Anyway, it’s a rose-throated becard (Pachyramphus aglaiae), and it mostly sticks to Central America.

Here’s another Estabrook Park regular, a blue-headed vireo, who I first spotted there last spring in mid-April.

This next handsome devil is a cinnamon-bellied saltator (Saltator grandis), and it keeps strictly to Central America.

This bird threw me for a loop. I could tell it was a New World warbler, but not one I recognized. Well, that’s because it’s my first ever Townsend’s warbler (Setophaga townsendi). No one has reported spotting one in Estabrook yet, and the last time someone spotted one in all of Milwaukee County was back in 2006, so they might not make it there very often.

This face I recognized right away, and it helped that it posed just as boldly as the azure-crowned hummingbird did just last Friday.

Finally, yet one more bird, a female rose-breasted grosbeak, whom we can expect to see in Estabrook in just a couple of months.

And that was all before breakfast, but we fly home tomorrow, so I’ll tell you about the rest of the day then.

Guatemala Day 6

All spare you the details of what all transpired yesterday, but let’s just say that microbes were involved, and I’m on the road to recovery. Oh, and we drove to Antigua, “the capital of the Captaincy General of Guatemala from 1543 through 1773, and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.“

This morning, when I got up, I felt a lot better, and I was finally able to pay attention to the critters to be found on the grounds of our nice hotel. This first one might be the only mammal of the trip, looks a lot like the eastern grey squirrels we see in Estabrook, but is far outside their range. Instead, I believe it is a Deppe’s squirrel (Sciurus deppei), which would explain why it is eating what appears to be an avocado.

Here’s another new woodpecker, a golden-olive woodpecker (Colaptes rubiginosus).

As cool as those two critters are, the biggest catch of the morning, at least for me, was this tiny ferruginous pygmy-owl (Glaucidium brasilianum). It is only about 6 inches long, and for those of you scratching your head, as I was, “ferruginous” is just a fancy way of saying “rusty” or “rust colored”. In this picture you can even see one little yellow eye looking our way.

I think Anne saw these first, and when I finally laid eyes on what she was pointing out, I thought they were starlings, because they were noisy, large, speckled, and foraging in a group, as I see starlings do. Instead, I am thrilled to report that they are actually band-backed wrens (Campylorhynchus zonatus). They are in the family Troglodytidea, so they really are wrens, but they are in the genus Campylorhynchus, the “large-bodied” wrens, which I did not even know existed.

Finally, we found these two lovebirds on the old colonial central square in Antigua, and they are easily half the size of pigeons, whose tail you can see in the lower right corner of the picture. That’s because they are Inca doves (Columbina inca).

With any luck, we’ll go to see some Mayan ruins tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed.

Guatemala Day 4, Día de Lluvia

It started raining overnight, and drops hitting something that banged loudly made me think, in my state of semiconsciousness, that pipes were banging so the heat was coming on. Well, the heat was not coming on, it was still raining at sunrise, and it has rained here all day as far as we know.

I did see some birds from our covered porch this morning, but my pictures are streaked with raindrops, so here’s a nicer picture from yesterday of another familiar face, a Tennessee warbler, whom we just might see again in Wisconsin in a few weeks.

This not-great-picture, from a couple of days ago, is of a little bird with an awesome name, common chlorospingus (Chlorospingus flavopectus), and I’m not kidding. Sources say that it may also be referred to as a common bush tanager.

Since the forecast was for rain all day, Anne suggested we take a road trip to a “nearby” sugar mill museum, Museo Regional del Trapiche, in San Jerónimo, where “the first sugar plantation in Central America was founded … in 1601″. Google maps said it was just about an hour away, but what it didn’t say is that it routed us down a dirt road for the last 10 kilometers.

At one point, after we had already scraped bottom once, Anne said of the “road” ahead, “it looks bumpy, but not bottom-out bumpy,” and she was correct for that stretch. At least there were no log bridges, we eventually made it just fine, it wasn’t raining there, and the museum was quite nice, but I’ll leave the description to someone else’s travelog. Let me show you, instead, some wildlife we also saw there.

Here’s a banded peacock butterfly (Anartia fatima).

Here’s our first lizard of the trip, which even Anne was excited to see. This one turns out to be, as far as we can tell, a Guatemalan emerald spiny lizard (Sceloporus taeniocnemis).

We could hear birds chirping from time to time in the nearby trees, but they kept out of sight, so here’s another of the many butterflies, a yellow-tipped flasher (Telegonus anausis).

Finally, here’s a northern red rim (Biblis aganisa).

Lastly, here’s a black vulture, which I just recently showed you in Connecticut, from my hike yesterday afternoon on the hill behind our hotel. From the cloud forests of Central America to the restaurant dumpsters of New England, this is one far-ranging and adaptable bird, eh?

Guatemala Day 3

It was cool and cloudy at sunrise this morning, but not rainy, here at the Country Delights Hotel, so I got out before breakfast to see who I could see. The great-trailed grackles were already making a racket, but the little zzzzt zzzzt of this gorgeous azure-crowned hummingbird (Saucerottia cyanocephala) really captured my attention.

The way the lighting has been so far on this trip means that the wordpress rendering is usually about as good as my pictures are gonna get, but not in this case. Somehow a little sun snuck in under the cloud deck and really lit this darling up beautifully. Give the image a click so that flickr will let you zoom in on all its spender.

Meanwhile, one of the several grackles in the tree above looked like it had less of a bill and dark eyes, instead of the giant schnoz and yellow eyes they usually have, and that’s because its a melodious blackbird (Dives dives), instead.

Once I saw this next bird, I immediately thought, “a ha, now there’s a familiar face,” because I was sure that it was a red-bellied woodpecker, as we see in Estabrook regularly. Their range, however, doesn’t bring them anywhere close to here. Instead, this turns out to be a golden-fronted woodpecker (Melanerpes aurifrons), and probably a female of the “Velasquez’s” variety, so the name-sake “golden front” is about as prominent as the “red-belly” on the birds in Estabrook.

After breakfast, Anne and I finally visited the Biotopo del Quetzal, and we saw a lot, including a highland guan, a green-throated mountain-gem, a scaly-throated foliage-gleaner, and a slate-throated redstart, which are all new to me, but my pictures are all poor or non-existent.

Then we went for lunch at the nearby Ranchitos del Quetzal, and look who came to visit the flowers hanging from the eave of the porch. By then it was already raining or just about to start, so there wasn’t much light, but this picture is good enough to identify the bird as my first ever violet sabrewing (Campylopterus hemileucurus).

After the rain quit, there was a racket in the trees overhead, and we thought a few grackles had flown in, but we were fooled again, this time by a few unicolored jays (Aphelocoma unicolor).

After lunch, we drove back to the Country Delight Hotel, and I strolled around the grounds while Anne relaxed. There were several butterflies flitting about, and I thought this was the most striking of them, even though it turns out to be a moth, an orange satyr-moth (Heterusia atalantata), as far as I can tell.

Later, I hiked up the hill behind the hotel again, and this time I found a rufous-collared Robin (Turdus rufitorques).

Finally, there really was a familiar face in the trees this morning, and it belonged to this Baltimore oriole, just like the ones we see in Estabrook, and who caught a bit of the same sun that lit up the azure-crowned hummingbird that I started with. So, if you’ve been wondering where they go in the winter, now you know.

Guatemala Day 2

I realized after I published my post yesterday, from Guatemala City, that I should have saved it until this morning, but I goofed up, and now I have reason to show you this evening already some of the amazing sights we saw today.

Before breakfast, I was looking out the window of our hotel room again, and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I spotted this character atop of the tree across the intersection. That’s my very first acorn woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus), and a pair of them were sipping water or nectar from those huge red blossoms. You can just see part of the second bird in the lower left of the image.

This next bird, my first clay-colored thrush (Turdus grayi), looks just like the cousin of our American robin that it is, if a bit less colorful, and it was kind enough to perch a lot closer.

After breakfast, we had a little time before the pickup appointment that Anne had made for the rental car, so we walked over to the the Museo Nacional de Arqueologia y Etnologia, which was fantastic. Even better, on the way back, I spotted this red-eyed character foraging amongst the great-trailed grackles on the lawn, and it turns out to be my first bronzed cowbird (Molothrus aeneus). It is, of course, a perhaps-flashier cousin of the brown-headed cowbirds we see in Estabrook.

Once we got the car, we drove through the mountains to our next lodging, Country Delights Hotel, just outside of Purulha and just up the road from the Biotopo del Quetzal we hope to visit tomorrow. Right off the bat, I noticed a large turtle sunning on the lawn beside a decorative pond they have out front. It looks a bit like the painted turtles we have in Estabrook, but bigger and with a rougher-looking shell. Well, that’s because it’s a Meso-American slider, (Trachemys scripta venusta) instead. Ha!

Once we checked in, we strolled around the grounds a bit before supper, and look who I found this time foraging amongst the great-tailed grackles, which are apparently ubiquitous here. Well, this stunner turns out to be a chestnut-headed oropendola (Psarocolius wagleri), and the first one I’ve ever heard of, let alone seen.

There’s a little trail that leads up the hill behind the hotel, and we could hear birds in the tall trees above, from time to time, but we had better luck seeing the butterflies on the ground. Here’s a wide-bordered satyr (Satyrotaygetis satyrina), as far as I can tell.

And this amazing creature, hiding in very bad light, is a white-spotted clearwing (Greta annette)

Finally, one of the birds in the canopy above relented and let me take its portrait. If you’ve been reading along for a while, it might look familiar, and that’s because it’s a greater pewee (Contopus pertinax), the slightly more “bulky” cousin to the eastern wood-pewee we see often in Estabrook Park.

That’s it for today, so wish us luck for tomorrow.

Guatemala Day 1

Anne and I arrived safe and sound in Guatemala City early this afternoon, and after we delt with the shenanigans of their new-fangled, all-digital customs declaration, we walked the few blocks to our hotel for the night. On the way, I could hear plenty of birds calling, and I couldn’t wait to check in so I could get my gear out.

While Anne unpacked her stuff, I took some pictures out the window of our room, and this is the male great-tailed grackle who was energetically defending his territory from atop a utility pole across the street. We saw them before, in Nevada on our way home from our trip to the Grand Canyon last year, but this is the first time I got to see them nesting.

We walked to a great cantina for a late-late lunch/early supper, and when we returned to our room, I continued taking pictures out the window. Here’s the female grackle who left the territory defending to him and spent more of her time hauling nesting material up to a well-hidden spot in the tree that shades our courtyard.

There were a couple of white-winged doves perched on the wires strung between the utility poles, and here’s one showing the backside and blue eyering. I first saw them in Texas a couple of winters ago, but I must not have gotten a picture worth showing.

Here’s another showing the name-sake white wing stripe.

Meanwhile, this tropical kingbird kept its distance down the street. I did see at least on our trip to Brazil a couple of summers ago, but its picture didn’t make the cut at that time, and I have no idea why because it’s way better than the one I got today.

Finally, there were swifts overhead, which I failed to identify, and a hummingbird checking out the tree the grackles were in, which I also failed to identify, but the bird I was most excited about is this yellow-winged tanager (Thraupis abbas), in the tree across the intersection from our hotel. It’s my very first, so Woo Hoo!

Tomorrow we’re off to Biotopo del Queztal for a couple of days, so wish us luck! And sorry about the typos. My editor is off for today, so Lord only knows what I typed.

Travel Day 1

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.

A fork-tailed flycatcher (Tyrannus savana) perched on a power line over a little town in which we stopped on our way to a jungle lodge.

A Manaus slender-legged tree frog (Osteocephalus taurinus) perched on the railing right outside our cabin after dinner.

A greater ani (Crotophaga major) along one of the zillion waterways we went down.

A pair of Amazon river dolphins (Inia geoffrensis) off the shore of Manaus.

A capped heron (Pilherodius pileatus)

A giant ameiva (Ameiva ameiva) that has just caught a dragonfly on the lawn of one of the lodges we stayed at.

A great kiskadee (Pitangus sulphuratus)

A pair of capuchin monkeys

A hoatzin or hoactzin (Opisthocomus hoazin)

Finally, a Crethon daggerwing (Marpesia crethon) deep in the forest that kept flitting around and really made me work for this shot.

Wish us that kind of luck again!

Winter goes for one more deep dive…

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!

Oh, and while I’m away, by buddy John Kasper has offered to host the weekly wildlife walk next Monday, and the current forecast suggests things will warm up by then. Maybe you’ll get to see the first red-winged blackbird or the first yellow-bellied sapsucker of the year. Good luck!

A cold and quiet mid-February morning

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.

We did glimpse at least one white-throated sparrow, and I got a picture of one fox sparrow, but the young white-crowned sparrow gave us the slip today.

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.

Finally, here’s another look at that female northern cardinal who posed so nicely yesterday.

Classic Wisconsin Winter Weather, and a short Havenwoods Recap

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.

We even had about a dozen takers for our bird walks. One of the highlights for me was the small flock of American tree sparrows, which we do get to see in Estabrook from time to time, but not very regularly. They seem to really like to forage for seeds in tall grasses, of which Havenwoods has acres.

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.