Signs of Life in Estabrook Park

A little excitement on a cold day…

It was a chilly morning in Estabrook Park, with the thermometer at 3°F for sunrise, despite a blanket of clouds that prevented the sun from warming things up much. At least the wind didn’t feel too bad in most places.

My first surprise of the day was finding the muskrat up on the ice again, in almost the same spot as yesterday, despite the drop in temperature. Just seeing that bare tail sitting out on the ice in the open like that gives me a chill.

The next picture worth taking came at the pond, where this “Oregon form” dark-eyed junco was on break from collecting seeds.

Finally, for Estabrook, there were also a pair of American tree sparrows at the pond, whom I don’t get to see very often, busily foraging along the edge between the forest and the lawn, and this is the one I managed to capture on film.

I wrapped up a little earlier than usual, partially because of the cold, and I didn’t have anything else going on this morning, so I paid another visit to Grant Park to see if the evening grosbeak (Hesperiphona vespertina) would show itself this time. Happily, I barely waited 15 minutes and then suddenly it was there. Woo Hoo! I read that they are an “irregular migrant. When cone crops in northern coniferous forests are poor, Evening Grosbeaks “irrupt” in fall and spend the winter far south of their normal range. These irruptions formerly happened every 2–3 years in the eastern United States but have become less frequent.” Hence, the hoopla over this individual.

Then, per usual, I stopped along the lake shore on my way back north, and the most interesting sight was a few goldeneyes in the Lakeshore State Park lagoon. It started with this pair appearing to perform a little mating dance.

Then, just as the drake made his signature move, throwing his head all the way onto his back, another drake tried to horn in on the action.

This quickly led to a brief kerfuffle between the drakes.

And finally, they had to dry themselves off. I, perhaps as did they, lost track of the hen in all that excitement, but I don’t think she went far.

I mentioned earlier that the wind wasn’t too bad at Estabrook, but that was not the case at Lakeshore. Oowee, it was cold there. I’ve been home a couple of hours already, and I’m still warming up. I see it is supposed to be even colder tomorrow, and I can’t wait to see if the cold brings anyone new our way. I’ll keep you posted.

Critters keeping warm on a cold day…

It wasn’t the coldest day of the month, so far, but it was nice and chilly, nevertheless, this morning in Estabrook Park. Fortunately, the winds were pretty light, and the sun came out every once in a while, so it was a nice enough time for a visit, if you were dressed for it. The critters that live there, on the other hand, have only the feathers and fur on their backs, of course, so this is how they look when they “bundle up.”

We’ve been seeing this red-tailed hawk fairly regularly, lately, and here it is across from the islands in the river, all poofed up, and trying to soak up some of that sun while it can.

It’s tough to stay warm without calories to burn, and here’s a muskrat up on the river ice again to pack in some more.

This eagle, on the other hand, did not look particularly different today, and perhaps that is due simply to its large size.

On the other extreme, this tiny winter wren, which has been evading me since October, had better have other tricks up its sleeve.

Finally, the house sparrows and house finches were really making a racket at the pond, but I was happy to find at least one white-throated sparrow in the mix.

The forecast suggests that it is only going to get colder, and we should expect temps in the single digits tomorrow with wind chills in the negative teens. Brrrrr! Perhaps we’ll get to see if that will be cold enough to make an eagle fluff up.

All over the map…

The thick clouds that have been making gray skies all week finally drifted away overnight, so we had a beautiful, if chilly, morning in Estabrook Park.

I was thrilled to see one of the mature bald eagles high over the far riverbank again, but with just one of them, I can’t tell if this is the female or the male. I even saw the youngster fly by later in the morning, but it wouldn’t stop for pictures.

The crows have been busy patrolling the park for raptors lately, and here’s one taking a well-deserved break to peck at some breakfast between its toes on that branch below it.

At the pond, the little red squirrel, whom we often see there, was feeling a bit shy this morning.

Finally, for Estabrook, how could I resist a northern cardinal feeding on sumac seeds in the gorgeous morning sun?

Now, about my visit to other parks yesterday afternoon. It appears that we have a visiting evening grosbeak hanging out at Grant Park, and I have never seen an evening grosbeak, so I set out to see if I could spot it, too. Well, after standing around for a solid hour with no sign of it, I decided to cut my losses and move on. I did get to see, however, the first red-breasted nuthatch I’ve seen in a while, so that was some consolation.

On my way back north, I stopped in at the South Shore Yacht Club and spotted my first lesser scaup in a while.

Next, I stopped in at Lakeshore State Park, and there I finally found our first goldeneyes of the season. I counted about a dozen, both males and females, and this drake image came out the best.

There were also buffleheads, which we’ve already seen this season, and red-breasted mergansers, but they kept their distance.

The forecast calls similar weather tomorrow morning, if a bit cloudier, so maybe a goldeneye will finally pay a visit to the Milwaukee River for a change. We’ll see soon enough.

A deer in winter…

We received about another inch of wet, heavy snow overnight, and I took some time to clear our sidewalk this morning before temps fell back below freezing, so I didn’t get into Estabrook Park until 10am. By then, my expectations of finding wildlife were low, and the birds pretty much met those expectations, but this buck surprised me. I saw the doe first, and she didn’t wait for me to get my camera fired up before slipping over the crest of the bluff. This buck, on the other hand, pause for a minute to stare me down, and I will be eternally grateful.

And that’s the show for today, I’m afraid. I did take the afternoon to visit a couple other parks, but it’s late, and I’m exhausted, so those pictures will have to wait for another day.

No raptors today, but pretty and interesting birds anyway…

We received a little more snow overnight in Estabrook Park, which is always nice, and temps were in the high twenties this morning, which is a bit of a warmup, but the cloud cover remains thick, and there was a bit of haze in the air, so I’d call wildlife viewing conditions somewhat of a mixed bag.

The eagles stayed home today, probably in Lincoln park, and both a red-tailed and a Cooper’s hawk made flyovers, but neither stopped to say “hi”.

Instead, one highlight I did find was this common merganser hen resting on some river ice and perhaps enjoying the relatively warm air.

I am happy to report that belted kingfishers must still be finding the calories they need in the water that remains open, and I managed pictures of two distinct individuals today. This one, of a female, came out the nicest.

Finally, our American black duck is back, and here it is dabbling with the mallards. Besides the darker overall color, the black bars on each end of the blue stripe, instead of white bars, as on the hen behind it, clinch the ID.

The weather is supposed to be even worse tomorrow morning, so who knows what we’ll get, but I’ll be sure to let you know.

Pair bonding in Estabrook Park…

The sun poked through the thick clouds once in a while, but it was mostly a dark and gray morning in Estabrook Park. Once again, one other nature lover joined me for our weekly wildlife walk, but before we met up at the beer garden parking lot, look who I found frantically foraging near the ground beside the pond: one of a pair of late-season golden-crowned kinglets.

There were also about a dozen cedar waxwings high in a tree at the north end of the pond. I would have loved to catch them eating berries, but today was not that day.

At the river, we watched a Cooper’s hawk glide across, and it was kind enough to perch right over us and even called for a while, but nobody answered that we could hear.

The main show for the day, however, was this pair of mature bald eagles over the far riverbank. They were perched apart when we first spotted them, but as I was getting pictures of each, one flew over to join the other, and then the singing began. This was a first for me, and I read that this behavior is likely for pair bonding. You can see that the one to the rear is significantly larger than the one up front, which makes her the female. Here’s a sequence of four images, to give you a taste, and all in WordPress’s “custom HTML” so that if that format works on your email client, you can view them in quick succession.

Here they are again with WordPress’s “embed Flickr”, in case that’s the format your email client prefers. If your email client handles both just fine, then you get to see it twice!

Finally, a third, juvenile bald eagle flew in, perched a bit away and above the pair, and silently looked down on them like a teenager watching their parents dance at a wedding.

The forecast calls for the cloudy skies to continue through Wednesday morning, so here’s hoping that the critters will continue to carry the show until the sun comes back.

Winter doubles down…

It was a perfect winter morning in Estabrook Park, with an inch or two of fresh fluffy snow, which I believe is called “powder” in some cultures, temps in the mid-twenties and dropping, nearly still air, and crystal blue skies.

The first critter I found enjoying it with me was this little red squirrel contentedly gnawing away on its breakfast of black walnut.

I didn’t see any odd ducks on the river today, I am sorry to say, but I was thrilled to spot our first red-tailed hawk of the month. Even better, there were two of them, but maybe it’s a new relationship, and they are still shy about it, because they didn’t give me much of a chance to capture them together. Instead, here’s a picture of the one that stuck around for a while.

Although the air was “nearly still”, the snow on the branches was so light and fluffy that almost any movement at all would cause a mini flurry, and here’s a dark-eyed junco caught in one. The reddish background is from the red brick of the old Eline’s Chocolate Company building across the river from the northwest corner of the park.

As I was looking in vain for odd ducks, look who I spotted up on the ice, our first muskrat since the pond froze over.

As I made my way back downstream, this white-breasted nuthatch was kind enough to give me a “heads-up” with a couple of soft “yinks“. “Thanks, Buddy!”

The bushes by the pond were mostly filled with house sparrows and house finches, but I did see this one white-throated sparrow filling up on dark purple berries.

Finally, this American robin was filling up on that fresh snow, instead.

Lastly, the forecast calls for 20°F, cloudy skies, and 3 mph winds at 8 tomorrow morning, so conditions should be good for spotting wildlife. Thus, if you come on out, and I hope you do, just make sure you dress for the weather and trail conditions.

PS: if you are still mystified by the new image arrangement I’m using, please see my explainer at https://signsoflifeinestabrookpark.net/images/

In case you’re wonder where all the warblers have gone…

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m gonna join a couple thousand other numbskulls and ride my bicycle around Milwaukee today while dressed up like Santa Claus, and it’s probably best if you just don’t ask why.

Anyway, the sky is very heavy with dark clouds this morning, so I don’t really have a hope of sneaking into Estabrook before I get on the road, and I don’t want to leave you empty handed, so it’s back to the archives I’ve gone. One of these days I will have finally shown you all the pictures I took during that amazing trip to Belize that Anne took me on, but today is not that day.

I skipped over these initially because they are all birds we’ve seen in Estabrook, but now that they’ve all flown south for the winter, it might be fun to see which ones landed in Belize.

First up is this Tennessee warbler on Caye Caulker filling its belly with tropical bugs for a change.

Similarly, here’s an eastern wood-pewee doing the same.

This magnolia warbler, also on the Caye, wouldn’t pose nicely, as the others were kind enough to do, but there’s no hiding that stunning yellow-with-black-stripes underside.

Finally, I have glimpsed a yellow-throated warbler in Estabrook, but I never managed to capture one on film until I spotted this one on a Caye Caulker rooftop. “THANKS, SWEETIE!”

Now, on to Crooked Tree Lodge, where this gorgeous male American redstart was foraging for bugs on one of their rain barrels.

Lastly, here’s a black-and-white warbler, also at Crooked Tree, to round out the sextet.

With any luck, I’ll be able to return to our regularly scheduled program tomorrow.

Another winter arrival…

The weather was not too bad in Estabrook Park this morning. Temps were a good 10°F warmer than yesterday, the winds were often blocked by trees or terrain, and the sun even came out for a bit. Best of all, another winter visitor has arrived.

I wouldn’t necessarily call it an ice bird, because it doesn’t look quite as comfortable in icy water as the common mergansers, goldeneyes, or buffleheads do, but I have only seen American black ducks here in the wintertime. They just look more like they’re putting up with it than reveling in it. Anyway, here’s one trying to catch some zzzs.

And here it is again, with a mallard hen who was kind enough to show off the white bars on either edge of her speculum feathers, for reference.

The next big surprise was finding our first kestrel of the month. It was busy working on its breakfast when I first spotted it, but that didn’t take long, and here it is checking me out next.

Apparently, I was neither a suitable second course nor a sufficient threat, because here it is casting that steely gaze to the horizon instead.

Finally, the only other bird more intent on filling its belly than dodging my camera was this American goldfinch mining that catkin for alder seeds.

The annual Santa Cycle Rampage is tomorrow, and festivities kick off between 8:30 and 9:30 here in Shorewood, so it is not clear if and when I’ll be able to show you any new wildlife pictures, but I’ll do my best.

The ice birds stayeth, at least for now…

I’m sure there will be an unseasonable thaw, eventually, that will break my heart, but I am definitely loving the winter that December is serving up so far. Temps were in the single digits at sunrise this morning, the sky was crystal clear, the breeze wasn’t bad at all, and there is still enough snow on the ground to provide about 99% coverage. The only thing missing today was critters willing to pose in front of that perfect blue sky. Oh well. Perhaps they have other things to worry about.

On the plus side, the common merganser hens are still on the river, and it was nice to have some sun to light up their pretty red eyes and something other than gray clouds to reflect off the water.

Even better, they scrounged up a drake, and he let us catch just a glimpse of the amazing iridescent green his head feathers can produce.

Finally, and I know that came up soon, but that’s just how this game goes sometimes, now that the lawns they like to graze on are covered in snow, there are plenty of Canada geese back on the river. Here’s a snoozing sextet that has accumulated a dusting of hoarfrost from the slight steam coming off the relatively warm river water.

The forecast for tomorrow morning calls for a little less cold, a little more wind, and a lot more clouds, so maybe a few more critters will be out and about. We shall see soon enough, eh?