Signs of Life in Estabrook Park

The new arrivals pick up the pace…

The change in the weather that I’ve been waiting for finally arrived overnight, after a line of thunderstorms rolled through, and it was cool, dry, still, and mostly sunny in Estabrook Park this morning. Sweet.

I spotted our first treat of the day amongst the mallards on the water between the islands in the river. This little cutie looks a lot like the mallards, but it’s only about half their size, has a little more gray than brown in its plumage, and has a black beak with a little light patch in the feathers behind it, all of which mark it as our first blue-winged teal, a female or youngster, of the fall migration. Woo hoo!

There were also a pair of young spotted sandpipers, and here’s the one that chose not to perch on that darned tire that I still have to get out of there.

This next amazing creature is our very first sweetheart underwing moth (Catocala amatrix). The only reason I was able to find it on this hackberry tree bark is that it flew past me, and I was able to see where it landed. Since it was so big, gray, and landed on a hackberry tree, I first figured it was a hackberry emperor butterfly , which we just saw on Monday, and are always great to see, but you know how I love to find species that are new to us.

Back to the birds, I found this little darling hungrily hunting for bugs in an oak tree high above the bluff by the soccer fields, and if my sources are correct, it is either a young or female blackburnian warbler or a pine warbler. Either way, that makes it our first warbler of the fall migration. Yee Haw!

This next picture was sent in by the grandson, who Anne took for a hike from Hubbard Park along the river into Estabrook this morning, and yup, that is the fabled young yellow-crowned night heron that has had so many birders all atwitter recently. If this is a sign that the kid might be turning into a chip off this old block, I pity his parents.

Finally, I stopped by what’s left of the weeds beside the soccer fields, and the work crew was taking the morning off, perhaps because of the rain we got last evening. We still haven’t found the person who made the decision to convert half of it back to turf grass, but I think we’re getting closer, and I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, here’s a black swallowtail from the other side of the paved path, where the weeds are still growing wild.

Tomorrow morning should be even nicer than today, with cooler temps and fewer clouds, so I can’t wait to see who shows up next.

Good news and bad news in Estabrook Park…

It was a peaceful morning in Estabrook Park. The temperature, humidity, wind, and even cloud cover could all be described as mild. The usual four or five great blue herons were on the river, and they’re a little tricky to count when they are so spread out and moving around, but at least this one stood still for me.

We still have one or two green herons, as well, and here’s a youngster on the far riverbank blending in pretty well, despite its high-contrast markings. I read that these markings work by breaking up the bird’s outline and misdirecting the eye.

The biggest surprise on the river today was the reappearance of our on-again-off-again great egret, which does not appear to be trying to camouflage itself at all, but which sure does manage to make itself scarce when wildlife walkers come to visit. “Where were you yesterday?”

On my way back downstream, I found a handful of cedar waxwings preening in a tree over the far shore. They’ve been starting to fly around in flocks, and I watched a few dozen race across the soccer fields earlier in the morning, so it was nice to catch some nearly at rest.

The next surprise of the morning was spotting our first eastern phoebe of the month, also over the far riverbank, but a lot closer to eye level. “Welcome back, Sweetie!”

The last big surprise of the morning was spotting this tiny kestrel as it glided in to land on the infrastructure that supports one of the radio towers located across the river and downstream of the abandoned bridge abutments. The last time we saw a kestrel, back in mid-July, it was actually a pair, and they were mixing it up with some crows by the old candy factory.

Finally, here’s that monarch picture I mentioned yesterday.

Lastly, I did stop by the weed patches beside the southern soccer fields this morning, but I ended up chatting with the work crew that was there again today and didn’t get many pictures. I learned, however, that the current plan is to plant the east side of the path, where I’ve been seeing so many butterflies and dragonflies this summer, with turf grass. This is a sad turn of events, in my opinion, and if you agree with me, I urge you to contact whomever you know at the parks department to ask them to reconsider. I have a couple contacts that I will try, and if I can’t make any progress, I’ll share them with you. I apologize for not yet having a better plan, but I’m scrambling to catch up with this new situation.

A slow mid-August Monday…

There has indeed been a break in the weather, and I saw real blue sky this morning for the first time in a week or so. Yay! As I was waiting for the 7am wildlife walkers to arrive, there was one crow on the parking lot and one on a pole beside it. Then two more flew in, but they weren’t alone. This Cooper’s hawk, who was noticeably smaller than the crows, appeared to be in a dispute with them, and here it is considering its next move. I read that crows don’t like Cooper’s any more than red-tails or great horned owls, but that Cooper’s are agile enough to turn the tables in flight, if they choose, and maybe that’s what was going on. In any case, the Cooper’s soon moved on, the crows foraged for a minute, but must not have found anything worth staying for, so they eventually moved on, too.

I had one customer for the 7am round, and we found wood ducks on the pond, great blue and green herons on the river, and this one male Baltimore oriole. They’ve been starting to make some noise again, after going quiet for nesting season, but I expect they will follow the red-wing blackbirds and head south soon.

We had a second customer come for the 8am round, but we failed to find anyone new. Oh well. Fall migrants from up north will be here soon enough.

Once we all parted ways, and I started to make my way home, I found this stunner on the playground beside the middle parking lot. It turns out to be a Hackberry emperor, of which we’ve seen plenty, but I don’t think they’ve let us have many looks at that stunning row of eyespots on the outer/under/ventral side of their wings.

Just a bit south of there, near the tunnel under the parkway, I found a red-spotted purple, who have been numerous in previous years, but who have been pretty scarce so far this year. This one looks a little roughed up, but I can’t tell if that’s a cause or effect of their current relative scarcity.

Finally, I did stop by the weeds beside the southern soccer fields, and I was relived to find that the heavy equipment there today was just finishing off the east side, which they cleared last week, and not starting on the west side. I did get a nice monarch picture on the west side, but I just showed you a monarch yesterday, so here’s a tiny summer azure on an ornamental flowering onion blossom beside the Benjamin Church House instead.

The forecast for tomorrow looks quite similar to today’s, but a little dryer and with a bit of a breeze out of the WSW. Perhaps some passers by will find that to be more headwind than they want to contend with right now and stop in for a break. One can hope, right?

Checking back in on Lakeshore State Park…

As promised, I did ride the Oak Leaf Trail down to Lakeshore State Park this morning, and in short order, I found this handsome devil paddling slowly in the quiet water basin. He’s a greater scaup in eclipse plumage, and we last saw one in Estabrook back in February. “Great job complying with the ‘slow-no-wake rules’, Buddy!”

Then the rest of the Milwaukee Birders arrived, and we saw a handful of young brown-headed cowbirds, who have become scarce in Estabrook lately.

There were about a dozen young or female purple martins, perching on their house to preen and rest, and one male who wouldn’t look my way, the little stinker.

The funnest sight, for me at least, was the dozens of barn swallows hunting bugs high and low over the open fields. One youngster even posed on a rock for a minute so I could get a nice picture.

On my way back home, I stopped by Juneau Lagoon, and I found even more barn swallows. Here’s another youngster, hoping to be fed, but I believe it will be disappointed because the approaching bird does not have the long outer tail feathers of an adult.

Instead, here is an adult with the characteristic forked tail, but not too forked, so probably a female, and she’s got her face buried nearly to her eyeball in one lucky fledgling’s mouth to deliver a meal. The other two will just have to wait their turns.

Sorry about the resolution of the image above. I couldn’t tell which bird would be fed next, so I had the aperture pretty small to deepen the depth of field and have them all mostly in focus. Plus, I had the shutter pretty fast to reduce motion blur. Thus, not a whole lot of light was able to reach the sensor, the ISO went through the roof to compensate, and in a digital camera that introduces a lot of noise to the image.

Finally, back before I left the state park, I found this gorgeous black swallowtail sipping nectar from a hyssop blossom.

I see that we’re due for a slight change in the weather, temps are forecast to be only in the high 60s tomorrow morning with a dew point in the low 60s, and it should be quite comfortable for our weekly wildlife walk in Estabrook Park. Sunrise is forecast to be 6:00, on the dot, so that should still leave me plenty of time to reach the beer garden parking lot by 7am. If that’s too early for you, I’ll swing back by again at 8. Come on out and let’s see if the night heron is still there, the egret has returned, or some new shorebird has arrived.

It’s not all bad…

The guy who runs his German shepherd loose over the southern soccer fields at dawn was back today, after a couple day absence, so there was no sign of the twin fawns and their mom. Instead, here’s a video I took with my phone yesterday after I thought I had gotten the best picture of the twins that I was gonna get with my camera.

A nice treat at the pond, besides another row of wood ducks, was this belted kingfisher with a fresh fish for breakfast.

An even bigger treat was spotting a young yellow-crowned night heron on the river again. We had about 30 birders post checklists from Estabrook Park, who probably would not have otherwise paid us a visit, after I spotted one back in July, so it will be interesting to see if this one draws as much of a crowd.

As before, it caught a crayfish, but this one is a lot bigger and easier to see than the last one. “Good job, Kiddo!”

A big disappointment yesterday came as I headed for the weeds beside the soccer fields, where we’ve been seeing dragonflies, butterflies, and bumblebees all summer, only to find the parks department in the middle of mowing it to the ground. At least they only mowed the weeds on one side of the paved path and left the other side alone, for now, and here’s hoping that all the bugs managed to migrate over. I did see this male widow skimmer dragonfly there this morning. They’ve been become scarce lately, but they’re not all gone yet.

Among the butterflies was this sulphur butterfly on a sow thistle.

And finally, there were at least two monarchs sipping nectar from what is probably swamp thistle.

The Milwaukee Birders are going back to Lakeshore State Park tomorrow, and I plan to join them. Perhaps I’ll see you there.

Untitled…

I don’t have words today, so here are some pictures…

The twins, their mom, and maybe an aunt on the soccer fields at the south end.

Just the twins.

One of two bucks on the river between the islands.

A young green heron on the river around the islands.

A silver-spotted skipper on some nearly-gone-by bergamot in the pollinator garden.

A male indigo bunting beside the southern parking lot.

Twins!

There’s been no change in the weather, so I won’t belabor that point. Instead, the big new news is that we have two more fawns in Estabrook Park. Woo hoo! These were at the far south end this morning, and there were two together with their mom, so I’m sure they are twins and neither one is the fawn we saw on the islands in the river as recently as Monday. It would have been great if I had had a shorter lens with me, so I could show you both, but I still haven’t settle on a way to do that and keep the reach of my long lens, so we’re stuck with an image of just one of them for now.

I had only gotten as far north as the Benjamin Church House when I heard the familiar cry of a young raccoon, and it didn’t take me long to find the youngster, big enough to be out on its own, but acting like a cat that climbed a tree and now can’t get back down.

It’s been a while since we hauled a bunch of tires out of the river, and I don’t know if new ones are replacing them, or old ones are just finally surfacing, but this spotted sandpiper wanted to make sure that I knew about this one. “Thanks, Buddy! I’ll get right on it!”

The olive-sided flycatcher was still with us this morning, and this time it posed low enough that I could get it in front of a nice green background. My vision is “color-challenged,” so I can’t say for sure if that is bringing out any of the olive-green on its vest. Can you see it?

At the pollinator garden, a pair of American goldfinches were eagerly tearing the seeds out of spent blooms, and here’s the male, whose fancy breeding plumage is starting to look like it has seen some wear, but I can still see the yellow.

Finally, after a bit of a butterfly drought, I got to see a pretty fresh looking common buckeye, …

and this gorgeous painted lady at the weeds beside the southern soccer fields.

I see that the breeze is forecast to pick up a bit by tomorrow morning, so I wonder if that will blow anyone new our way. If it does, I’ll be sure to let you know.

A new arrival to welcome, despite the gloomy weather…

Just when I thought the weather in Estabrook Park couldn’t possibly get any darker and damper, today came along to show me I ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Sheesh! At least it wasn’t pouring down rain, and the winds continue to be very light, so that’s somethin’.

Anyway, most of the critters appeared to be sleeping in this morning, and the park was as quiet as I can ever remember. Birds gotta eat, however, so here’s a young green heron trying to fish from the bank of the downstream island in the river.

The one fun surprise today was spotting this little darling, colored perfectly to match the day, and perched high above the meadow at the north end. The wildlife walkers and I thought we saw one on Monday, but that turned out to be a false alarm. This time, I’m happy to report, it really is our first olive-sided flycatcher of the fall migration. “Welcome back, Sweetheart!”

Their range map suggests that this individual is on its way from breeding grounds, stretching from upstate almost to Hudson Bay, to wintering grounds in parts of Central America and most of northern South America. “Safe travels, and see you next spring!”

And that concludes the avian portion of today’s program. Thankfully, I’ve got a couple pictures from yesterday to pick up some of the slack, and here’s a quintet of wood ducks up on a log in the pond to preen and get that new fall plumage in top shape.

I didn’t see the bald eagle this morning, but it paid us a visit yesterday, so here it is.

Finally, I did see one butterfly today, a Peck’s skipper, of which we’ve seen plenty already this summer, so here’s another look at the Huron skipper from yesterday, but this time holding its wings in that signature fighter-jet pose that skippers use.

If you’re wondering if we might have seen the end of the gloomy weather, I have some bad news for you, because the forecast for tomorrow morning calls for fog and 95% humidity. Oh well. Maybe next week.

Plenty of necks, long and short…

The clouds were thicker, lower, and wetter than yesterday in Estabrook Park this morning, but the wind was even lighter, so at least “the hearing” was good.

Here’s what a great blue heron on the river looks like under these conditions.

After putting in an appearance for me early yesterday, and then evading the wildlife walkers soon after, look who decided to show its face again this morning. Yup, the great egret was back, and it appeared to be as interested in my whereabouts as I was in its.

If that neck seems long to you, as it sure does to me, you’ll be fascinated to learn that that’s because the great egret’s neck is about 1.5 times longer than the length of its body, whereas the great blue heron’s neck is actually longer but may not look as long because it’s only about 1.2 times longer than its body, although both have the same 20 or 21 neck vertebrae, depending on how you count them.

Since I didn’t see one all week at Kohler-Andrae, and we couldn’t find any yesterday in Estabrook, I thought that maybe all the killdeer had already flown south, but my thoughts were premature, as this little cutie demonstrated today.

I did see spotted sandpipers up north, some of you may recall, and we did see them in Estabrook yesterday, so I wasn’t surprised to see them again today. The picture from yesterday, however, came out a bit nicer, so here it is.

Similarly, I did see plenty of green herons last week and a couple on the pond yesterday, and I was still happy to see one again today, but I like yesterday’s picture better. Oh, and green herons also have 20 to 21 neck vertebrae, just like its big cousins, but they only amount to about the same length as its body, when fully extended.

I didn’t see any turtles today, but conditions must have been right yesterday for this mismatched pair to climb up on a log. The larger one towards the back is a red-eared or pond slider, and the smaller one towards the front is a painted turtle.

Finally, the only butterfly I saw today was a tiny least skipper, and it was so close I had to take its picture with my phone, so allow me to use one more picture from yesterday, when the butterflies were plentiful. Here’s a Huron skipper, aka Huron sachem, which I just happened to show you for the first time exactly two years ago today. Ha!

Once again, we find ourselves in some kind of weather holding pattern, and the forecast for tomorrow looks about the same as today’s, if maybe a little drier. We’ll find out for sure soon enough.

An egret back in Estabrook at long last…

The clouds were thick this morning in Estabrook Park, but the rain did hold off, temps were mild, and the winds were very light, so it was a fine time to resume looking for wildlife there.

There were plenty of sights to see, but the treat of the morning has got to be the first great egret I’ve been able to show you from the park since October 2023! “Hello, Stranger!”

Then it was time for me to collect the wildlife walkers at the beer garden parking lot, and the first place they all wanted to go was the river around the islands, in hopes of getting their own eyes on that egret. By the time we got there, however, all we could find were great blue herons and this one bald eagle. That’s a pretty good consolation bird, but too bad about the egret.

As we moved from spot to spot along the river in hopes of finding where the egret was hiding, Donna also found our first ruby-throated hummingbird since June. Yay!

After we finally gave up on the egret and started making our way back downstream, someone spotted the fawn and her mom on the downstream island, and here’s the fawn eating its leafy greens.

Since we had no luck with the egret anywhere on the river, we gave it a go at the pond next, where there were a slew of wood ducks, a pair of green herons, and this handsome, male belted kingfisher. But no egret. Oh well.

Then it was time to call it a morning and let everyone get on with their day, but on my way home, I checked in on the weeds beside the soccer fields, and that’s where I found this gorgeous painted lady butterfly sipping nectar from a burdock blossom.

Finally, lest you worry that the group went home sad for not finding that darn egret, just look at the smiles on their faces when they found a six-pack of unopened Budweisers! Ha!

I see that we’re due for more thunderstorms this evening, but the forecast for tomorrow morning looks similar to today’s, so I can’t wait to see who shows up next.