The warm sun and blue skies were gone, but the temps were still mild, the clouds had no leaks, and the air was nearly still, so it was a fine morning for visiting Estabrook Park. My first treat for the day was getting this yellow-rumped warbler, our first warbler of the season, to hold still for the 125th of a second that my shutter was open.

I was happy to see that we still have some winter wrens around, and I counted three today, but this one seemed surprisingly oblivious to me taking pictures of it from the bridge over the ravine north of the beer garden.

Another recent returner are the hermit thrushes, and I counted three of them as well, all along the path through the woods from the pond down to the river. This one was checking to see if I was going to try taking its picture, and the answer was, “yes, yes I am.”

The female red-winged blackbirds are finally starting to arrive and checking to see which males have staked out suitable territories over the past few weeks.

And the wood ducks continue to sort out who’s gonna be with whom for egg-laying season.

This last image should probably come with a warning for folks who are squeamish about critters whose name rhymes with “Jake”. If you think that might apply to you, maybe don’t scroll down.

All right, now for the biggest news of the day. I’ve been searching for this sight since the first summer of taking these pictures, back in 2020, and I can’t believe that today was finally the day for my dreams to come true. This darling little specimen, about the size of a pencil, appears to be a pale DeKay’s brown snake (Storeria dekayi). I read that they are named after James Ellsworth De Kay, an American zoologist in the early 1800s, and that they primarily feed on slugs, snails, and earthworms.

This is yet another brand-new species for me. How many more can there even be? I found it under a nice flat rock, which I had picked up to put into a muddy patch of the river trail. Once I saw what I had done, however, I knew I had to cover it back up, but I was afraid I might harm it if I just put the rock back down because it was quite heavy, and I would probably never get it into exactly the same place.

Instead, I took a couple of pictures, of course, and then I put the snake in the palm of my hand to warm it up a bit. I put the rock back into place, and once the snake was warm enough to start moving, I let it loose right by the edge of the rock in hopes that it will soon get back home safely. Initial indications were that my plan was working, so I moved on and left it alone.

While Anne and I were off to Illinois to see the total eclipse of the sun, spring really kept springing along in Estabrook Park, and there were a few new faces to see this morning.

First, the ruby-crowned kinglets have returned, and there are also yellow-rumped warblers, but they were less bold this morning.

Butterflies are out, too, and here’s an American painted lady or American lady (Vanessa virginiensis) warming up in the sun. The jury is still out, oddly enough, on whether the ones we see here in Wisconsin have just emerged from hibernation or have just migrated from points south. In various locations, they are known to do both.

And here’s its close cousin a red admiral (Vanessa atalanta), sipping sap from a maple tree. As for whether they hibernate or migrate, they are in the same boat as the American Lady.

Finally, here’s one last bird from our visit to Illinois, a Northern mockingbird, which I’ve seen in Connecticut and Texas, but not yet in Wisconsin.

Anne and I made it to the Rotary Park in Sparta, Illinois without any trouble, and we got to enjoy a full three minutes of totality. It was amazing, but I didn’t bother with pictures, and we just enjoyed it.

Before the big show, however, we also got to watch this Osprey fishing over the Old City Reservoir. What a great opening act.

We didn’t see it have any luck, but at least is was a very nice day for a dip.

Anne and I drove down into Illinois yesterday afternoon in hopes of finding a good location for viewing the eclipse later this afternoon. This morning, I got to go look for birds with my uncle, and we found a few, but I don’t have a lot of time this morning, so here are just a few of the highlights.

The butterflies are already out down here, and so here is a pretty red admiral, the likes of which we’ll be seeing in Estabrook Park soon enough.

A merlin flew in just for a moment.

And titmice are singing from almost every tree it seems.

This morning started out very nice in Estabrook Park, but then the clouds soon rolled in, and we’re now enjoying yet another grey day in April. Oh well. The mergansers and now all the grebes have moved on, but as happy coincidence would have it, I captured my first great blue heron image of the year. It was perched high over the northern island and didn’t stick around long, but if last year is any indication, we’ll soon be seeing plenty of them.

So, back to Africa we go. After my visit to the Lilongwe Wildlife Center, we all went to Elina & Evelyne’s Conference center for a picnic with the family of our host in Malawi. The grounds were nice, and I arrived early, so I had time to wander around and see who lived there.

Here’s my best portrait yet of a male variable sunbird, and this time at eye level with good light and a nice background.

Together with a female, they gave me the very strong impression that they were trying to chase me away from their territory.

Here’s another tawny-flanked prinia, also posing for a portrait.

And picking a fight with his reflection in that window.

Once again, there was a wall around the grounds with a cornfield on the other side, and this time it was a male yellow bishop (Euplectes capensis) protecting his territory.

There was also a male southern masked-weaver (Ploceus velatus)

and he was doing a little maintenance on his nest.

Finally, as I started to lose light, and the rest of the picnickers started to arrive, I found another pair of bulbuls cuddling up for the evening.

What a gorgeous morning we had in Estabrook Park today. With nothing to block the sun, I was able to start my visit at 6:30, which let me beat some of the rush. Plenty of birds were singing, but the first critter to pose for a picture was this red squirrel, busily munching on a nut beside the path from the river to the pond.

The pair of mergansers were gone from the pond, and the wood ducks kept to themselves, so I continued back to the river. There, plenty of brown creepers continue foraging up tree trunks, and this one let us have a nice profile look.

With the horned grebe also gone, the north end was unremarkable, so I turned back south. At the bottom down the bluff from the southern playground, I did find one of the pied-billed grebes again, and here it is.

Finally, back at the south end, I was surprised to find this goldfinch already in his summer finery. All the others I’ve seen so far this year are still wearing their drab winter coats.

Once we got back to Lilongwe, I had a chance to visit the Lilongwe Wildlife Centre while Anne and the team were busy working again. I already showed you a vervet monkey and butterfly from there, so here are the rest of the sights.

First is another Schalow’s turaco, which we already saw in Lilongwe last October, but a little more clearly this time. Man, they are shy birds.

Then a blue monarch, African blue tiger, or dappled monarch butterfly (Tirumala petiverana). I don’t know how “blue” got in the name because all the pictures I can find online show a black butterfly with white spots, just like the one pictured below.

I never saw this creature move, but there were warning signs about Nile crocodiles (Crocodylus niloticus) all along the river, and that’s what Google lens identifies it as, so that’s what I’m gonna go with. I kept my distance, but I’d estimate the exposed portion to be about the size of a man.

The reserve was mostly lush, deep forest, and I suppose most of the birds were keeping to the canopy, as was the turaco above, but that left me time to notice the many butterflies closer to the ground, and here’s a soldier pansy or soldier commodore butterfly (Junonia terea) with fancy coloration on the topside/inside and leaf-mimicking camouflage on the underside/outside.

Here are a couple more young vervet monkeys just monkeying around.

Lastly, the brown-veined white butterfly that I already showed you was not the only butterfly on the tall grass along the highway outside the wildlife centre. In fact, it was this blue pansy or dark blue pansy (Junonia oenone), in the same genus as the soldier pansy above, that convinced me to take my camera back out and put it together for one more picture.

The huge storm system, which brought us snow two mornings in a row, has finally moved on, and I can’t see a cloud in the sky right now, but it was still pretty cloudy when I visited Estabrook Park earlier this morning. Happily, there was still enough light to capture this image of our first pied-billed grebe of the season. There were two of them, in fact, but I couldn’t manage a picture of them together. The last time was saw one was back in October.

This pair of red-breasted merganser drakes on the pond, however, just needed a moment to drift into a nice tight formation for me.

When the sun finally did start to poke through the clouds, it was just in time to light up this brown creeper as it took a moment to preen itself.

It appears that the horned grebe has finally moved on, and the belted kingfisher didn’t want to show its face, so that’s all I have from Estabrook for today. There are more pictures from Malawi, however, so let me squeeze a couple more in.

Here’s one of the two African pied wagtails (Motacilla aguimp) that I saw often enough in Jelia Park that they seemed to get used to me. By the last day, I was able to get this nice portrait. We saw a mountain wagtail at Dzalanyama, a western yellow wagtail on the Ackerdijkse Plassen in South Holland, and plenty of white wagtails all over South Holland, but this is my first African pied wagtail. Here’s a nice little video of a wagtail wagging its tail, and all the ones I have seen so far do this.

On our long drive from Tongole Lodge, we passed many fields with corn or just tall grass, and we kept glimpsing dramatic red and black birds perched on the stalks, but it wasn’t until I peeked over the wall surrounding Jelia Park into the neighboring fields that I could start taking pictures of one. They were very shy, and it took me many tries, but here finally is an astounding black-winged bishop (Euplectes hordeaceus)

Finally, here’s another look at a yellow-fronted canary, showing a bit of its namesake yellow front.

That’s finally it for Jelia Park, and the next stop will be back in Lilongwe, from which there are still amazing creatures to see.

The April snow persists, and this morning’s weather was almost a repeat of yesterday’s. Happily, the critters in Estabrook Park changed things up for us, so here’s who I saw today.

The red-breasted merganser was on the pond again, along with the two Canada geese and about a dozen mallards, but the new sight today was this pair of wood ducks. Sure, they’ve been around and even on the pond from time to time, but I didn’t see them there yesterday.

Here’s the hen.

As I walked over to the river, I glimpsed a little bird flit into a tree, and I thought it might be an eastern phoebe. When I got a better look through the corner of my binoculars that hadn’t fogged up yet, I was thrilled to see it was and eastern bluebird, instead. They visit Estabrook from time to time, but I sure don’t get to see them very often.

When I finally did make it to the river, there was another surprise waiting for me, this darling goldeneye hen, the likes of which we haven’t seen in Estabrook since February.

Lastly, the horned grebe is still with us, and sound asleep this morning.

While we’re all here, let me show you a few more pictures from Malawi. Plus, they’re all nice and sunny. After our stop on the western shore of Lake Malawi, we turned west and eventually stopped for the night in Dowa at a place identified as “Jelia Park” on google maps. The next morning, while Anne and her team got to work, I took a look around to see who I might find in a “subtropical highland climate.”

First up is this stunning male village indigobird, which I promised you earlier.

Next, is this amazing pair of red-billed firefinches (Lagonosticta senegala), a first for me.

They just kept coming, and here’s a southern black flycatcher (Melaenornis pammelaina), another first for me.

And it is tempting to suppose that this is why it looks so blue, instead of black, but it is probably just feather iridescence, instead.

Lastly, common bulbuls seem to be just about everywhere, and here’s a pair looking pretty cozy.

Well, the snow sorta did eventually arrive here in Estabrook Park, but temps never got below freezing, so the little bit that did stick to the grass and branches is almost already melted. The big surprise for me this morning, however, was how high the river water has become. I estimate that it is 2-3 feet higher than when I was there on Monday, and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen it so high. Much of the river path was submerged.

Anyway, the birds were still going about their business, since they don’t really have a choice, and I saw quite a few. Here are the ones moving slowly enough for me to capture a decent image in such dim light.

A red-breasted merganser drake was on the pond and taking a break from fishing when I stopped by.

The mother goose was keeping her eggs warm on the island.

Along the river, I saw more brown creepers than I believe I’ve ever seen in a single day. At one point, I could see four of them on a single tree trunk and a fifth on the next trunk over.

The horned grebe was still on the river by the northern island, and it too was on break from fishing at the moment.

Farther south, at the bottom down the bluff from the southern playground, which was completely flooded, I found my first swamp sparrows for the season. Woo hoo! “Welcome back!”

Finally, there were also plenty of golden-crowned kinglets around, and I took another crack at getting a decent portrait. We’re not there yet, but I think you can get a general idea of what they look like.

Since I have a little room left, let me slip in a couple more pictures from Malawi. On our journey back toward Lilongwe from the Tongole Lodge, we stopped for supper at the luxurious Sunbird Livingstonia Beach Hotel on the shores of beautiful Lake Malawi, which I read “is far deeper than Lake Michigan,” although it has about half the surface area.

I already showed you the amazing pair of cut throats I saw there, but here’s another picture.

That is also where I saw a stunning adult wire-tail swallow that I promised you.

Finally, this amazing butterfly, which I believe is an African monarch or dorippus tiger (Danaus chrysippus dorippus) fluttered by and paused for just a moment. As you might have already guessed, it is a close relative of the African queen we saw on Comoros and to the monarch butterflies we’ll soon be seeing in Estabrook Park.

It appears that the weather’s April Fools’ prank will be arriving a day late this year, if we do get any of the snow forecast for today. In any case, it’s dark and precipitating now, which is expected to continue all day long, so this is my big chance to get some more Africa pictures out of the queue.

I left off with pictures from our stay at the Tongole Lodge in the Nkotakhota Wildlife Reserve, so let’s continue there, and next up are this pair of tiny and brightly-colored half-collared kingfishers (Alcedo semitorquata) on the far bank of a small tributary flowing into the Bua River. They average just 7.1 inches in length while the belted kingfishers we see in Estabrook are nearly twice as long at 11-14 inches.

The bird I saw most frequently was the common bulbul, which I also saw in Lilongwe, so not nearly as exotic, but they sure do strike handsome poses.

Near the end of our stay, we all piled into the lodge’s old Toyota Landcruiser to go looking for the elephants that left their calling cards all over the dirt roads. We never did spot any, but when we drove the length of an abandoned airstrip, we did find this flock of about eight helmeted guineafowl (Numida meleagris).

We were not allowed to exit the vehicle, of course, so here’s the best closeup I could manage from my seat.

Back at the lodge, I could hardly believe my eyes when I spotted this quintet of hornbills in the tall trees across the river.

They were far beyond the useful range of my camera, but you can still make out the shape of their bills in this over-zoomed section. That makes them trumpeter hornbills (Bycanistes bucinator), and the few times I heard them call made me think that they were aptly named.

Another amazing sight I saw across the river was this mutable sun squirrel (Heliosciurus mutabilis) with a long, ringed tail.

On the last morning, as we were all packing up to head to our next location, a small troupe of vervet monkeys, like the ones we saw in Dzalanyama, came to see us off.

Since we were so close to the equator, you shouldn’t be surprise that we had lizards, and this one is either a rainbow skink (Trachylepis margaritifera) or its close cousin with an overlapping range, the African five-lined skink (Trachylepis quinquetaeniata)

Finally, I saw just one amphibian on the entire trip, and it was this small and brightly colored toad, whom I am not having any luck identifying further.

Okay, time to wrap this up, but not before I show you this darling little butterfly, which I believe is a spangled skipper (Dotta stellata).