There was a nice blanket of snow on the ground, not a cloud in the bright blue sky, and a nice, crisp air temperature of -2°F, which 17 mph winds out of the northwest made feel like -20°F, in Estabrook Park this morning. It is finally starting to feel like winter in Wisconsin! I saw only one other pedestrian during my visit, but there were plenty of hardy critters coping with the conditions, and here are some of the ones I captured on film.

The flat river water is almost completely frozen over already, and there were about three dozen Canada geese out on a patch of it between the islands and all lined up with the wind.

In the few channels of open water that remain, along the far shore, a few common mergansers were diving for fish, …

and a lone common goldeneye drake was diving for snails.

Back on shore, a male downy woodpecker was busy pecking the heck out of that branch.

Back at the pond, the bushes that surround it were jam-packed with poofy little birds, and here are a few I haven’t shown you too recently: a black-capped chickadee, …

a white-throated sparrow, …

and a female northern cardinal.

The forecast is for -8° tomorrow morning, with a slight reduction in wind, but I’m keeping my hopes in check for now after a string of recent forecasts that over promised but under delivered. We’ll know the real score soon enough.

We finally got some real snow, despite the best efforts of the warm Lake Michigan water directly to our east. Between waiting for the snow to move out, playing with the visiting grandson with the Erector Set my mom and dad gave me for Christmas 100 years ago, and then shoveling the driveway so said grandson could attend a birthday party, I can’t believe I managed to fit in a visit to Estabrook Park.

Happily, the critters seemed distracted enough by the change in weather that I managed to capture a few images. Here’s a male northern cardinal by the pond.

And here’s a flock of house finches, with one mourning dove in the mix, a few steps north.

At the risk of overdoing it with mourning doves lately, here’s one showing off some pretty blue tail feathers that I have not noticed before.

Finally, as far as the pond is concerned, here’s a soaking wet male house sparrow, which I would normally skip, but who looks quite interesting when soaking wet, and who makes me wonder how he got soaking wet.

At the river, the two great horned owls were in their usual spots, but this one wasn’t too hidden.

Lastly, at the north end, there were nearly a dozen common mergansers, but they stayed near the far shore, so here’s a friendly robin willing to pose right overhead.

It’s just 6am, and our next round of snow has already started. This one is forecast to be a doozy and last all day, so I doubt I’d be able to get any pictures for you today. Luckily, I have a couple more from yesterday that I hope can fill the gap.

On the river, our goldeneye has departed, probably to join the flocks of his compatriots back on the lake, but this handsome couple of common mergansers have arrived to take his place.

By the pond, the house finches were not alone, and here’s a dark-eyed junco feasting on some seeds.

Back at the river, the lone red-breasted merganser drake is still with us, and here he is trying to enjoy a nap in the bit of sun that poked through late yesterday morning.

I know this isn’t everyone’s favorite bird, but this mourning dove posed so nicely by the pond that I just couldn’t resist taking its picture.

Finally, back at the river, the kingfisher was going about his business despite the poofy piles of snow on his branches.

Lastly, this little cutie surprised me with its call. It’s a song sparrow beside the river, and we’re just inside the northern extreme of their year-round range, but we don’t get to see or hear much of them these days. I didn’t recognize its call, and I had to get help from the Merlin app to identify what I was hearing. I see now that it’s classified as a “juvenile call” on the AllAboutBirds site.

It’s now closer to 7am, and it is really coming down out there. Stay safe if you have to venture out today!

We finally got a bit of real snow last night, and the skies were even that beautiful bright blue for a while this morning, but I’m pressed for time today, so here’s the one picture I took this morning that best captures all of that.

I thought it was a house finch, but I’ve since learned that it is actually a female purple finch.

We did get some snow, though the wind blowing off the warm Lake Michigan water kept the accumulation here to near the bottom of the forecast range. I’m sure some folks are thrilled, but the silver lining for me is that the strong east wind finally blew a common goldeneye our way. This drake is both the first one I’ve seen in Estabrook Park this winter and the first one I’ve managed to capture on film anywhere this season.

Just a bit behind and above the goldeneye, both owls were in today, and this one was hardly hidden at all for a change.

I must have stepped in something on the trail this morning, because my luck was holding, and the red-breasted merganser drake was still on the river as well.

Back up on the bluff, my luck kept coming because as I headed back toward the pond, one of the two red-tailed hawks I had seen when I first visited the pond earlier this morning was being chased over the main parking lot by a couple of crows. Even better, it had just caught a squirrel, and so it didn’t go far before taking a perch. I doubt the hawk was trying to send a message, so I suppose we can just chalk it up to dark irony that it happened to perch with its fresh catch on a squirrel drey. In any case, isn’t that some gorgeous plumage?

Finally, all the open water, at least on the river, is letting the muskrats keep foraging for fresh vegetables, and this one below the falls was so engrossed with what it had found that it let me get surprisingly close for this picture.

The forecast snow has not yet materialized, and all we are getting so far is rain and wind, so I’m gonna give Estabrook Park a break today. Instead, let me show you some more critters Anne and I saw in and around Big Bend National Park this time last year.

You have already seen this first bird, a black-throated sparrow, before, but this picture better shows off its bright white belly.

This is the only picture of a ladder-backed woodpecker (Dryobates scalaris) that I managed to capture, and I left it out on the first round because I didn’t like the way the electrical wire looked. I had hoped to have another chance for a better picture, but I never did.

This darling, backlit by a bright afternoon sun, looks a lot like the mourning doves we often see in Estabrook, but upon closer inspection, that white leading edge to its wing makes it a white-winged dove (Zenaida asiatica), just like the one Stevie Nicks sung about way back in 1981. Again, I thought I’d come up with a better picture, but I didn’t get the chance.

This shy bird, which I spotted foraging in a corral, is a curve-billed thrasher (Toxostoma curvirostre), similar to the brown thrashers we get to see in Estabrook, but with a notable difference suggested by its name. Once again, I thought yada, yada, yada, but blah, blah, blah.

Finally, this little butterfly appears to be a dainty sulphur or dwarf yellow (Nathalis iole), and this picture is actually fine, but wasn’t quite as pretty as the birds I was seeing, and I was a bit pressed for time to write my posts while out there.

I got stiffed in Estabrook Park this morning, and I even tried the lakefront in hopes of showing you one of the loons that folks have been seeing there, but they were much too far from shore for my equipment. Instead, let me show you a couple of pictures from this day last year when Anne and I were in Big Bend National Park.

One of my favorite sights was this roadrunner that Anne found for me, and here are a couple of pictures of it, which I haven’t shown you yet, with a grasshopper in its beak and demonstrating the versatility of its head feathers.

Finally, here’s another look at the javelina I encountered while Anne was off at the store picking us up some lunch.

I see that the snow is supposed to start late tonight and continue all day tomorrow, so maybe I’ll have something pretty to show you in the morning. Wish me luck!

Donna’s Sunday morning birding group was visiting the South Shore Yacht Club again this morning, so I stopped by to see who might be out on the lake. We could see a few coots out by the breakwater, and someone saw a goldeneye or two, but the big surprise for me were the dozens and dozens of red-breasted mergansers swimming, fishing, and flying about. They were all inside the breakwater but not too close to shore except for this drake.

On my way back home, I stopped by Bradford Beach, and I could see dozens more goldeneyes, but they were much too far from shore for a picture. Thankfully, there was a trio of buffleheads right near shore, two drakes and a hen, and the drakes were too busy sorting out who was who to worry about me, so I was able to sneak this picture of one of them.

I still didn’t have much to show for my morning, and it wasn’t very late yet, so I stopped in at good ol’ Estabrook Park to see if anyone was still around. The owls were crazy hidden this morning, but as I tried to find a good vantage point, I caught a glimpse of a red-tailed hawk making an unsuccessful try for our belted kingfisher. After coming up empty, the hawk moved on before I could get close enough for a picture, but the kingfisher went right back to filling his belly, and here he is looking for his next fish.

Finally, as I was hiking back south, I found that we had a red-breasted merganser of our own floating with the mallards just off the southern tip of the southern island, and here he is.

If only he could have convinced a goldeneye to come with him. Maybe next time.

Sure it’s snowing lightly this morning in Estabrook Park and even sticking to the grass and branches a bit, but the big news is that a Mr. Danny Fritz reported “2 GHO in the radio tower structure (WITI TV Tower) up pretty high singing a duet” last evening and even posted a recording for us.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology reports that “the male and female of a breeding pair may perform a duet of alternating calls, with the female’s voice recognizably higher in pitch than the male’s.” Can I get a “whoo-wh’HOO-whoo-whoo!”

I can’t say for sure that they are the same pair we’ve been seeing semi-regularly on the island in the river since mid-December, but we can hope, right? Speaking of which, they were on the same branch today for the first time that I have seen and closer together than I have ever seen them before. Perhaps song is one way into an owl’s heart.

As usual, one was very hidden, and here’s the one that was mostly out in the open and keeping an eye on things.

Well, it’s now official. According to an article in today’s paper, “Great Lakes ice cover was at record low on Jan. 1.” Hence the lack of birds on the river, such as goldeneyes and buffleheads, that I believe only come south in search of open water when they have to. Ice was forming on the river this morning, however, and I was pleasantly surprised to find a quintet of common mergansers back again. Too bad there wasn’t some nice morning sun to light them up as there was last time.

A young Cooper’s hawk, as indicated by the white splotches on its back, perched high above the northern island, perhaps gazing at the mergansers below.

And that’s all the critters for today, I’m afraid. Thankfully, the cold weather and slowly lowering river water did make for some fun ice art.

Finally, since I have so much empty space today, here’s one more look at that dashing northern mocking bird from Connecticut posing in the warm morning sun a few days ago.