The folks in Connecticut will probably be sad when I head home, because I’m sure as heck gonna do my best to bring this amazing weather with me. It has just been stupendous out here.

Anyway, the birds played hard to get this morning, but I did manage to sneak another picture of a yellow warbler in mostly the same spot as yesterday.

The black duck was back, and it appears to be getting accustomed to its fairly public location, because it didn’t make me work too hard for this one.

As I checked for who else might be on that water, look who poked its nose up to say “hi.”

I hadn’t seen a single butterfly this morning, so after lunch I walked around the yard, which was also a bust, and then checked the vacant lot next door. Bingo!

Here’s an Indian skipper (Hesperia sassacus), as far as I can tell, and we might get them in Estabrook Park, but I haven’t seen one there yet.

Here’s an eastern tailed blue, which we have seen in Estabrook, but this time we get to see the inside/topside of those pretty blue wings.

Here’s another new one for me, and it looks like a dark skipper, but I never saw it hold its wings as we see skippers do and the Indian skipper above did, like NASA’s old M2-F2. Instead, I believe it is our first wild indigo duskywing (Erynnis baptisiae), and it holds its wings folded, wide open, or somewhere in between, as most other butterflies do.

After being all excited to see my first pearl crescent in Estabrook last week, I found it pretty funny to see at least two here today. Gotta look in the right spot.

This isn’t a butterfly, of course, but you can bet your bottom dollar that if I ever manage to capture a picture of a praying mantis in Estabrook Park, I’ll show it to you.

Finally, this last butterfly, a gray hairstreak (Strymon melinus), is both new to me and gorgeous, so here is your butterfly of the day. The closest we’ve come in Estabrook so far is a banded hairstreak, back in 2020.

The beautiful weather continues in Connecticut, and I was glad to have the time to get out this morning before the day got underway.

The first pleasant surprise was being reminded of the woosh-woosh-woosh sound that mute swans make as they fly over. Even better was spotting it after it landed.

I don’t believe I’ve managed to capture this scene on film before, so here it is: a chipmunk with a mouth full of nesting material. I guess it’s getting to be that time of year, eh?

I had been a bit surprised by the lack of warblers, and it turns out that I was simply looking in the wrong spots. On my way to the Farmington Canal Trail, I passed a gravel parking lot surrounded by weeds, and those weeds were full of little birds. There were sparrows, finches, wrens, a warbling vireo, and this very shy but unmistakable yellow warbler.

And here’s a warbler that I recognized more by its behavior than its plumage. As soon as it posed like this, I thought to myself, “Why, hello there, Doctor Palm Warbler!”

Anyway, since sometimes a look at the backside can help with identification, it soon was kind enough to oblige.

Finally, your “butterfly” of the day is gonna have to be this huge sweetheart underwing moth (Catocala amatrix) that joined us last evening.

I didn’t have much time this morning before the family events kicked off, but my sister was looking to get some steps in early, so out the door we went.

We were greeted right off the bat by this little cutie in the dim light, and it is a young Carolina wren, as far as I can tell.

A bit later, after the sun had come over the horizon, my sister spotted this gorgeous creature, a red-tailed hawk.

Finally, I found this Huron sachem yesterday afternoon to be your butterfly of the day.

I’m still in Connecticut, the weather is still beautiful, and I’m still struggling to get some good pictures for you.

At the start of my walk this morning, I spotted two green herons on the pond again, and this one appears to be a youngster, by the spots on its wing feathers, which I take as more evidence of a successful breading season.

Near the end of my walk, I was happy to see that the solitary sandpiper from yesterday was also still there.

The big surprise, however, in addition to the double crested cormorant, which I failed to capture on film, was this American black duck, which we’ve seen a couple of times in Estabrook Park, but not very often.

Once I got back home, the morning was still so nice that I continued looking in the office park next door, where I found this house sparrow uncharacteristically alone and busily gulping down grass seeds.

This trio of northern mockingbirds, briefly had a fourth, but there must have been some tension in the group, because as soon as the fourth landed, they all took off.

Finally, here’s a song sparrow also gobbling up seeds.

I made it safely to Connecticut, and the weather is beautiful here, too, but the critters were pretty shy this morning.

I did spot three green herons at the same time spread out over the water were I spotted them nesting in the spring, so that’s a potential very good sign.

Near the end of my walk, I was thrilled to spot my first sandpiper in CT, this darling young solitary sandpiper.

Finally, atop the flagpole out in front of the old Ball and Socket Mfg. Co. building, these starlings had found an interesting perch.

And that’s it for today, I’m afraid. Wish me better luck for tomorrow.

I’m off to Connecticut to see my folks for a week, and I may still be on the plane as you are reading this. Happily, yesterday’s outing in Estabrook Park went into extra innings, and I have a few more pictures to show you.

As I was trying to capture images of the asters and pearl crescent at the south end yesterday, a crowd of people was forming in the parking lot, and they turned out to be on a field trip with Professor Michael Pauers for his Ichthyology 511 class at the UWM School of Freshwater Sciences. They were headed down to the river to try electrofishing to see what they could find, and they allowed me to tag along.

Besides providing a way to catch little fish that you might never catch with a hook and line, electrofishing is supposed to leave most of the fish stunned but otherwise unharmed. Anyway, while the professor was out on the river with a couple of students making their first collection, I spotted this character buried up to its eyeballs in the river mud.

The anglers came back in short order, and the first haul included this common shiner (Luxilus cornutus), …

this hornyhead chub (Nocomis biguttatus), …

and this emerald shiner (Notropis atherinoides), all of which the professor IDed from just memory.

The next haul included this round goby (Neogobius melanostomus), an invasive species from the Black and/or Caspian Seas, …

this beautiful rock bass (Ambloplites rupestris), …

and this stonecat (Noturus flavus).

Finally, the third haul included this wee white sucker (Catostomus commersonii), …

and this gorgeous pumpkinseed (Lepomis gibbosus).

Lastly, as we were waiting on shore for more fish to come in, this gorgeous creature was flitting about above us, and I kept hoping that it would land someplace so I could take its picture. Well, sometimes miracles do happen, and this mourning cloak is your butterfly of the day. If you are wondering, we saw the in/top side of the wings last June.

Wish me luck finding something to show you on Thursday.

It was another beautiful morning in paradise, similar to yesterday, but with a lot less wind.

The first big surprise was finding a great horned owl back at the north end. We haven’t seen the likes of them since they had a run-in with a Cooper’s hawk back in August. “Welcome back, Gorgeous!”

While the owl was overhead, this migrating northern waterthrush was across the water foraging on the shore of the southern island.

At the north end, I caught a glimpse of this stunning golden-winged warbler. Can you imagine how it would have looked if my lens had focused on the bird instead of on the leaves in the foreground. Sadly, the bird did not give me a second chance.

Thankfully, this little cutie, a young and/or female magnolia warbler, I believe, came out a little clearer.

Another face we haven’t seen since August is that of this osprey, who perched statuesquely over the northern island.

If you ever wondered what an indigo bunting looks like as its blue feathers come in, here you go. This might be the youngster we saw just after labor day.

The great blue heron was back on the pond, but there were already enough photographers there, so I tried the river again, and this eastern phoebe was my reward. The most recent phoebe picture I can find is from April. “Watch out for that fishing line, Cutie!”

I could not find the spotted sandpiper on the lily pads today, so when I heard one down on the river from atop the bluff, I hustled down to find one on a rock in the middle of the river.

In the trees along the west edge of the soccer fields, I finally managed a photo, suitable for identification only, of a ruby-crowned kinglet, whom we also haven’t seen since the spring.

In the weeds beside the soccer fields, I was able to find a dragonfly that is not a green darner. Instead, this is a wandering glider, which we only saw for the first time this summer.

Finally, asters are starting to blossom throughout the park, and these stunning New England asters are growing right beside the southern parking lot and attracting quite a crowd of hungry pollinators.

Lastly, as I was trying to line up the asters, this faded beauty landed on a leaf right behind them. As far as I can tell, this is our very first pearl crescent (Phyciodes tharos), and close cousin of the northern crescent that we have seen a few times. There’s plenty of variation between the sexes and the individuals of a species, but the only images I can find online of crescents that have those dots along the hind edge of the hind wings fully boxed in, as this one does, is of pearl crescents, and here’s hoping that the experts agree with me.

It turns out that the white sky yesterday was caused by wildfire smoke, but it stayed up high, and a wind out of the west kicked up, so the sky was nice and blue again in Estabrook Park this morning.

My first greeter of the day was this darling palm warbler in the trees west of the soccer fields, and our first palm warbler of the season. The image is so grainy because the sun hadn’t even come over the trees to the east, and so there wasn’t much light yet. Thank goodness they are such good posers.

At the river, I was happy to see the spotted sandpiper was back on the lily pads, and here it is already hard at work before the sun had even reached down into the valley.

I beat the great blue heron to the pond, and there wasn’t much else to see yet, so I headed back to the river. As I was about to cross the parkway, I watched a Cooper’s hawk chase a red-tailed hawk back and forth over the baseball field. The red-tailed eventually swooped into this tree, and the Cooper’s continued on to the river.

At the north end the migrating ducks had moved on, leaving only dozens a mallards and a few geese. The trees on shore, however, were full of little birds, and here’s a female redstart flashing us her distinctive tail feathers. I read that “this seems to startle insect prey and give the birds an opportunity to catch them.”

Here’s a yellow-bellied flycatcher, I believe.

Back at the pond, I finally caught a male redstart in all his black and orange finery.

A great crested flycatcher swooped in to check out the scene, and then quickly moved on.

A black-and-white warbler foraged on branches and trunks as nuthatches do.

The yellow belly on this vireo marks it as another Philadelphia vireo. Compare it to the white-bellied and red-eyed vireo we saw just yesterday.

On this second visit to the pond, I found that the great blue heron had finally arrived, and here it is on break after giving fishing lessons to a couple of photographers on the west lawn again.

On my third visit to the river, the sandpiper was still picking bugs off of the lily pads, but now the sun was high enough in the sky to light up the scene.

Finally, the only butterflies I saw today were fiery skippers, and I just showed you one two days ago, so this green darner will have to serve as your “butterfly” of the day.

The air was a smidge warmer and a lot calmer this morning in Estabrook Park, and it would have been a perfect day except for a high, thin overcast that gave the sky a bright white color. The birds didn’t seem to mind, however, and they put on quite a show.

The great blue heron was already on the pond when I arrived, and it grabbed a quick snack before the regular crowd assembled for their fishing lessons.

At the river, there was a pair of female blue-winged teals, …

and here they are flashing us that namesake wing.

The far bigger surprise, if my identification is correct, would be this molting male cinnamon teal far out on the water. It’s got a nice cinnamony color and a red eye, as far as I can tell. It would be the first such teal spotted in Estabrook, but not the first in Milwaukee. Curiously, there was also a young or female hooded merganser with it, and that’s the bird with its back to us just under the tail of the teal and about to nudge the teal off that rock so it can have a turn at preening in the sun.

While I was taking countless pictures of the teal, in hopes that one would come out, check out the action I noticed over the Barnabas Business Center across the river. That’s a Cooper’s hawk, the smaller bird on top, fighting with an American crow, the larger, black bird beneath it.

Anyway, back on our side of the river, the little migrant birds were thick in the trees, and here’s a black-and-white warbler, …

a red-eyed vireo flashing its red eye, …

a young or female chestnut sided warbler, pictured for the first time this fall, …

a Tennessee warbler wondering if maybe somebody’s trying to hide inside that curled up leaf, …

and yet another black-throated green warbler. I took all these pictures while barely taking a step.

Finally, there were a few monarchs out and about, now that the wind has died down, and here’s your butterfly of the day.

Wow, it was chilly out this morning! I read 48°F, plus there was a nice breeze out of the north, so I had to layer up for the first time of the season. The cold might have kept some folks home for a bit, so I had the pond to myself when I arrived, and that enabled me to spot our first green heron of the month, probably a youngster by the looks of those light marks on the wings.

As I was looking to see who else might be around, the great blue heron flew in to provide fishing lessons again, but nobody was on the west lawn yet.

At the river, I had just plunked myself down on my favorite log, when I heard a familiar squawking from above from a pair of Cooper’s hawks with a lot to talk about.

At the far north end, as I scanned the bridge for pigeons and the power lines for starlings, I spotted this pair of crows who were up to something.

They repeated this act a few times, and the one on the right didn’t budge, but they were too far away for me to see what the one on the left was looking for.

Anyway, back at the pond, a couple of catbirds were meowing, and here’s the one I could get eyes on.

The tall trees around the pond were providing a nice windbreak, so the lower branches were full of little birds. Here’s a young bay-breasted warbler, another species we haven’t seen since May.

If my identification is correct, this is a Philadelphia vireo, which the fine folks at ebird have been flagging as “rare” for the last week or so.

Grackles are still around, though not in their usual haunts beside the river, so it was fun to catch this one over the pond.

Back out of the wind, here’s another black-throated green warbler.

The pond didn’t have a monopoly, however, and here’s a shy magnolia warbler lurking deeper in the leaves beside the river. We did see one of these just last month.

The breeze was pretty stiff at the pollinator garden, so my expectations were met when I didn’t find anyone there. Instead, this American rubyspot damselfly was perched in the sun right beside the walking path just north of the soccer fields.

Finally, there were a couple of intrepid, if tiny, fiery skippers on the thistle blossoms beside the soccer fields, so this will be your butterfly of the day.