What a morning! It rained, it poured, the wind blew, we even got a tiny, but oh so necessary, dose of graupel, and then the sun came out. PS: that title rhymes if you don’t know how to pronounce graupel.

Anyway, when I arrived at the pond, the skies looked threatening, the air was foggy, and it was a great morning for sleeping in.

Even this poor yellow-bellied sap sucker over the island appeared to be nodding off.

As I approached the beer garden, it started to rain, and that’s when we got a little graupel. It soon let up, however, and I started to continue north, but then the skies really opened up, and I hustled back under the roof at the beer garden to wait it out. It didn’t last long, thankfully, and by the time I finally made it to the north end, the sun came out, the sky turned blue, and it was perfect timing for capturing this young-looking peregrine falcon over the northern island. I suspect it was just trying to dry out its feathers, not put on a show for us, but I enjoyed it anyway.

All around the northern island, there was a slew of blue-winged teals, and here’s a drake.

I counted twenty teals in all, and here’s my best attempt at a group shot, necessarily through the sticks.

As I swung back by the pond, I found this little red squirrel enjoying some salad in its diet for a change.

This time, the goslings were up and back to stuffing their bellies with grass. Here’s my best attempt at getting all eight in tight formation.

Here’s a closeup of one, in case you’re into that kind of thing.

The wet weather meant that I had the pond pretty much to myself, so here’s a wood duck, who are on the pond pretty continuously now, but who usually draw a crowd.

Finally, the white trout lilies are starting to open, and …

the bumblebees are already hard at work.

The high-pressure system we’ve been enjoying is starting to lose its grip, and we’re due for rain later, but it was still pretty nice in Estabrook Park this morning. All eight goslings are still at the pond, but I left them alone today, and here’s another picture from Sunday.

There were a couple surprises on the river at the north end: a female hooded merganser, who avoided my camera, and a pair of gadwalls, whom we have not seen since last fall. Here’s the drake.

Northern flickers have been back for a while, but I haven’t had one pose for a picture until this morning. Here’s a female, in the foreground and blurry, and a male, in the background and looking sharp.

Robins have started building nests, and here’s one with a beak full of material.

Winter wrens and fox sparrows appear to have continued north already, but hermit thrushes are still around, and I counted three this morning.

The biggest surprise of the morning was finding a male common merganser on the river near the south end. I haven’t seen the likes of them since February. I thought they had all flown north already. “Buddy, you’d better hurry up!”

Finally, just as I was about the walk out of the park, by the southern parking lot, I spotted this striking red-tailed hawk working hard to grab one of the squirrels or chipmunks scampering around, but it wasn’t having a lot of luck.

As happens from time to time, our streak of beautiful weather continued this morning, with even less of a breeze, and I got out nice and early to enjoy it. Oddly enough, however, the critters in Estabrook Park were much quieter than yesterday. I suspect some have already moved north.

I was thrilled to see that all eight goslings on the pond made it through their first night, and here they are filling up on lawn grass under the careful guard of Mom and Dad.

Here’s a closer look at the little pipsqueaks.

The warm sun had this quartet of painted turtles up on a log in the pond.

And that’s it for the sights today, if you can believe it. Luckily, sights were so plentiful yesterday, that I’ve got some left over to take up the slack. Here’s yet another of my attempts at a decent ruby-crowned kinglet portrait. It least he’s showing us his ruby crown.

Here’s a bright yellow American goldfinch munching on box elder blossoms and contrasting nicely with the blue sky

Here’s a female red-bellied woodpecker digging away on the big birch tree in front of the dog park. Long-time readers may recall that “the female … accepts the nesting site by completing the excavation and entering the nest hole,” so he and we can have a hope that this is what is going on here. “Oh Honey! I was definitely going to get around to finishing that.”

Here’s one more look at the yellow-rumped warbler from Friday.

And finally, here’s our first clouded sulphur of the season.

Yes, we have goslings! I counted eight.

Here’s proud Papa right after chasing away some poor little dog whose owner obliviously walked it waaaay too close.

In other news, check out this hefty kitty…

Here’s an uncommon sight for Estabrook, a rusty blackbird just passing through.

This majestic beauty, a turkey vulture, must have smelled something tasty on the river bank below because I couldn’t believe how close it let me get without budging.

Here’s a herring gull, later in the morning, gobbling down what the vulture didn’t want. It smelled like fish from where I was standing.

Another infrequent visitor this morning was this eastern towhee. It did not stick around for a second shot.

I had been a little bummed that we didn’t get to see any buffleheads this year, and look who finally decided to grace us with their presence just this morning.

Lastly, the American painted ladies are still plentiful, and here’s one sipping nectar from some creeping Charlie blossoms.

For a change of pace today, I joined the Pike Lake/ Hartford Area Field Trip organized by the Noel J. Cutright Bird Club and lead by Carl Schwartz. It was a picture-perfect day, and we stopped at several watering holes along the way. The one on Oil Spring Rd. was a jackpot of ducks and other water birds. Here are a couple pairs of northern shovelers, which we get to see in Estabrook every once in a while.

Here’s a nice row of blue-winged teal drakes, which we see a little more often in Estabrook.

Finally, here’s a terrible picture of a pintail drake, which we do see in Estabrook, about as often as shovelers, but I’ve only seen ones in breeding plumage, when I was in South Holland.

When we finally reached Pike Lake, we found a huge raft of American coots, …

And one “singing” sandhill crane.

We saw a lot of other birds, over 50 species in total, but the trip wasn’t really intended for photography, so that’s it for the pictures I’m afraid. Instead, let me show you a few more pictures from our recent trip to Malawi.

On our last night there, back in Lilongwe, we stayed in a very nice AirBnB, and when I stepped outside at sunrise the next morning, I was thrilled to find a farmer’s field right out front surrounded by trees. That seemed like a perfect place to spot all kinds of critters, and it did not disappoint.

First up is this darling red-backed shrike (Lanius collurio) on the hunt.

The farm field attracted this amazing black-headed heron (Ardea melanocephala).

My one and only hoopoe for the trip flew over a little fence and hopped around on the driveway for a few moments.

My second ever roller, a lilac-breasted roller (Coracias caudatus), perched calmly on this branch all morning, as I walked back and forth, and I could barely make out the color because of the sun almost right behind it, and it kept its feathers all ruffled.

But then a second roller came by for a quick visit, …

and suddenly, it looked all pulled together, although the lighting still wasn’t so great.

Finally, when it was almost time to load up the van and head to the airport, my very first African woodpecker, a cardinal woodpecker (Dendropicos fuscescens), stopped in for a fine sendoff.

That wraps up Malawi, at last, but I still have a few more from Comoros to show you, but they will have to wait for another day.

I didn’t have high hopes for my visit to Estabrook Park this morning. It was cloudy and breezy at sunrise, and neither condition usually makes for great pictures. The critters in the park, however, had other plans.

It all started with this white-tailed deer that I only spotted because I was tiptoeing off trail to pick up a bit of litter that I could see poking through the dead leaves on the ground. She didn’t even budge as I inched toward her, and once I bent down to pick up the piece of plastic, she even resumed munching on the shrubbery. Long-time readers might recall that I spotted my very first deer, almost four years ago, while I was doing the same thing, traipsing off-trail to pick up litter. Ha!

At the pond, the bushes were full of kinglets, and then the sun came out, which really lit things up and finally enabled me to get a decent golden-crowned portrait for the year.

There were even a couple of warblers flitting from branch to branch, and in case any of you are wondering which type this one is, …

it kindly turned around to flash us its namesake “yellow rump.” Ta da! How nice was that?!?

Finally, as I was standing still and holding my camera to my face, a scenario that I’ve hoped for years would occur finally happened. This belted kingfisher landed right in a tree not twenty feet from me, and I didn’t have to startle it by moving or even looking in its direction. Instead, I just slowly rotated my camera toward it and started taking my best kingfisher pictures yet. Yee haw! Oh, and if you are asking yourself, as one does, well is this a male or a female, hold onto your hats, because…

it even turned right around to show us the clean white breast of a male. Unbelievable!

I must have snapped thirty pictures before I figured at least one of them had to be presentable, and then I slowly backed away with my camera still in front of my face, which left the kingfisher undisturbed. Phew! I then slunk off toward the river to see if there was anything else to see.

It turns out, there were plenty of birds to see, and I counted 43 species in total today, but there were no more pictures to be had. Let’s just say that today was a day for quality over quantity.

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.