Well, it was dark as pitch long after “sunrise” this morning with rain in the forecast, so I skipped visiting Estabrook and have some more pictures from Kohler-Andrae to show you instead.

Here’s one of the curious deer keeping tabs on me as I made my way along the cordwalk yesterday morning.

Here’s a young bluebird, which by itself might not be all that interesting, but …

nearby in the same tree sat this somewhat larger brown bird. Upon closer inspection, I believe this is a young brown-headed cowbird and probably step-nestling of the bluebird above. Just to be sure that cowbirds do parasitize bluebirds in Wisconsin, I looked it up, and sure enough, the female can sneak right into the nesting box and leave a speckled egg behind. Ah, nature.

Here’s a third fawn I saw yesterday morning, which brings the total deer count up to at least twelve distinct animals.

This was one of several sparrows foraging on the sand, and at first I thought it was a chipping sparrow, which I had heard, but upon closer inspection, I see dark streaks in its little cap. So then I thought it might be a clay-colored sparrow, but they have an unmarked chest even when young. Finally, I’m back to juvenile chipping sparrow, which I read “are streaked from head to toe.” Sheesh!

My old buddy, Brian, chimed in about the mystery warbler from yesterday and suggested pine. Here’s another look. In my defense, Nate Swick writes on 10,000 Birds that “pine warblers have the rather unusual distinction of appearing to look like nearly every single other species of migratory passerine in eastern North America.” At least it’s not just me.

Anyway, I think I’d be hard pressed to mistake a sora for any other bird, and here’s another look at the one out in the open for a moment yesterday.

I never did get to see a coyote again, so we’ll have to make do with another shot from Tuesday morning. I don’t believe I saw it look my way, and I wonder what it was keeping tabs on so intently.

Finally, since the tiger swallowtail was kind enough to pose, here’s another look at it on the Joe Pye weed from yesterday.

Lastly, this is the first glimpse I got of the sandhill cranes as I walked back to camp along the park road Thursday morning, and it seems like a nice way to close out the 2023 chapter on Kohler-Andrae State Park.

Oh, what a beautiful morning it was in Kohler-Andrae State Park. On my third try, I had the routine down pat, and I was done with breakfast and up on the cordwalk over the dunes in time to see this sight.

The deer were there to greet me, and here’s the first one.

I had heard turkeys on day 1-ish, but they eluded me until this morning, when I’d like to think that this sole hen came out to wish me a safe journey home.

A pair of sandhill cranes also gave me a glimpse from the cordwalk for the first time. On day two-ish, I didn’t spot them until I was walking back to camp along the park road.

I spotted some warblers again, and this time I had a little better, though still not great, luck with the camera. I believe the yellow throat and chest with light black stripes and a grey cap make this a female or immature Cape May warbler and my very first one, if true.

Meanwhile, in almost the next tree, this little devil remains a mystery. Its unstreaked yellow throat, chest, and belly, grey head, clear wingbars, and only slight white eye rings don’t quite fit Nashville, pine, orange-crowned, or female common yellowthroats. Argh! “How’d you get in without a name badge?”

Anyway, down on the cattail marsh, I finally found a sora skulking along the edge of the water.

And finally, along the old road, where I’ve seen monarchs, viceroys, and buckeyes, this stunning tiger swallowtail, a male based on the lack of blue spots on its hindwings, was finally willing to work with me to make the portrait such a beauty deserves.

Fin!

This morning in Estabrook Park turned out to be far nicer than forecast. It seems that the overnight rain washed all the grey out of the sky, and it was a perfect crystal blue.

On my way to the pond, I came across a monarch in the pollinator garden on a rough blazing star (Liatris aspera) blossom. It was a good sign.

At the pond, I counted 10 wood ducks, and here’s one still waiting for its flight feathers to arrive.

I didn’t see anyone else around, so I headed over to the river where I was thrilled to see one of our first fall warbler migrants, this northern waterthrush, on its way to Central or northern South America. The picture is barely good enough for identification, but it is only the first of many, I hope.

At the north end, things got crazy, and I sometimes struggled to pick what to photograph next. First off, there were four (4!) great egrets and five (5!) great blue herons flitting around between high perches on the island and the water below. Here’s an image with one of each, plus a bonus mallard. It looks as though the heron is slightly bigger than the egret.

There was also a bald eagle, …

a couple of belted kingfishers, …

a diminutive blue-winged teal, …

and an osprey! Holy Moly!

I eventually tore myself away, and on my way back south the sun had warmed things up nicely, so I stopped by the pollinator garden again to find this female pondhawk. You may recall the bright blue male we saw back in July.

There was also the first viceroy I’ve ever seen in Estabrook. Woo Hoo! Maybe they’ve been here all along, and I just didn’t recognize them, but I sure do now.

Finally, on the bull thistle amongst the burdock beside the soccer fields, a found this skipper that is quite pale on the outside, except for one dark spot, …

and quite dark on the inside. I believe that makes it an Ottoe skipper (Hesperia ottoe), a new butterfly for us and a “species of special concern” according to the Wisconsin DNR. Welcome to Estabrook Park, sweetie. We hope you like it here.

It’s a little better now, at midday, but it sure was dark this morning here in Shorewood, and I have so many pictures from Kohler-Andrae, which I haven’t shown you yet, that I skipped Estabrook this morning and just got some work done. So, here are those pictures.

On day 1-ish, I caught this eastern black swallowtail out on the cattail marsh, and I read that “the under sides of wings of males and females are virtually identical,” so I can’t tell you which one this is. Sorry.

Here’s another look at that beautiful merlin, from day 2-ish, as it ignores me and scans the horizon.

Here’s a fuller look at the young buck with little antlers (so far!).

Here’s a closer look at one of the sandhill cranes. This one was very curious about who might be hiding behind that tree and so came surprisingly close. That probably sounds like it could be ideal, but it kept switching eyes, first the left, and then the right, so I had to keep switching the focus point on my camera from side-to-side to get the eye in sharp focus. My job is so hard!

Here’s a fuller look at the buck with bigger antlers as it almost glows in that beautiful morning sunlight coming over the dunes.

There have been a lot of cedar waxwings about, and they’ve often been moving in flocks of a dozen or more, but here’s one who wasn’t yet going with the flow.

Here’s another look at the warbler, which I still think is a Nashville, but time will probably tell.

Some of the sparrows that pass through Estabrook, and so we only get to see briefly, are on their way to or from Kohler-Andrae, it turns out, and here’s one of several chipping sparrows I could hear.

After the big spring ruckus in Estabrook, especially around the pond, I hardly hear a red-winged blackbird there now that the nestlings have fledged, but they were still pretty active over the Kohler-Andrae cattail marsh, and here’s one on the lookout for intruders.

Finally, I can’t keep talking about the cattail marsh without showing you at least one marsh wren picture, and here it is. For the cool, acrobatic shots, see my reports from 2021.

Lastly, in addition to the monarchs, viceroys, buckeyes, and browns, I even saw a good-ol’ red admiral.

I learned a few lessons from day 1-ish, and this morning went smooth as glass. I put my camera in the car and parked in a nearby overflow lot last evening so when I got up at 4 this morning, all I had to do was walk quietly to the car, drive to Kwik Trip for a cup of coffee and an egg sandwich, then drive back to the beach to enjoy it while waiting for the lights to come on.

My first treat was this trio of deer making their daily migration across the dunes from the beach to the woods to bed down for the day.

Soon after that, I was floored to watch a small raptor swoop into a nearby tree. Even better, it let me crawl on my hands and knees close enough to get this portrait. At first I thought it was a peregrine falcon, but the face wasn’t quite right, and that’s because it’s a merlin instead. Ha!

I eventually continued on and came across this young buck just starting to grow some antlers. I definitely didn’t see it on day 1-ish, so that makes 12 distinct deer in total.

And then I finally got to see the infamous sandhill cranes that have been making such a racket every morning.

At the far north end of the park, I came across the buck from last time, whom I now see has a big head-start in the antler division.

On my way back south, I kept checking the pine trees in hopes of spotting some of the red crossbills everyone’s been talking about, and suddenly I thought I had my chance. Instead, it turns out to be an early warbler migrant, also heading south, and my best guess, from the grey head and yellow chest, is that it’s a young or female Nashville warbler, but I’m not sure yet. I’ll keep you posted.

Then I headed inland to check for more viceroys, and the first butterfly I met was this stunner, a common buckeye, instead. I’ve only ever seen them a couple of times before, so I didn’t recognize it right away, but Dr. Google remembered.

At the Black River, I could hear a little commotion, and the cause turned out to be this Cooper’s hawk perched just above the water. That’s two raptor portraits in one day. Woo Hoo!

Ol’ Coop didn’t stick around long, and when it left, look who I found perched just a bit farther out on the same dead branch. It looks like a young green heron, and perhaps the hawk was trying to convince it to “get in my belly!“

As if that wasn’t enough, there was a second heron lurking in the background, this young black-crowned night-heron. You can even see it in the blurry background along the left side of the image above. Yikes! It was crowded in there. No wonder there was a commotion.

Finally, it was time to call it a morning and head back to camp, and that’s when I saw the viceroy, well actually a pair of them. Ta Da! They sure appear to love that Joe Pye weed.

Lastly, along the park road that parallels the reed marsh, this darling pair of newly fledge eastern kingbirds were just enjoying the beautiful morning sun and crying for their breakfasts, and I was getting hungry for my second breakfast, too. Yum!

I came back to Milwaukee for some work stuff, and it was a nice morning to be back in Estabrook. Sure, it was a little cloudy, but the air was cool, the breeze was light, and it wasn’t raining. Anyway, I saw only wood ducks on the pond and so continued on to the river.

There I came across this curious sight. It’s a green heron, of course, which we have seen many, many times, but it was oddly tolerant of my approach. It was perched on a rock within a yard of shore, and there was no good cover, so I had to creep up on it over open ground, and I got within about a dozen feet, but it never flinched. Heck, it didn’t even keep its eyes on me. In the very next picture I took, its left eye is clearly rotated to look forward.

Now that I’m home and have access to the interwebs, I can see that the extra bit of marking on its feathers indicates that it is a juvenile, and perhaps it has not yet learned to keep me at a distance. For all I know, it’s newly fledged, has not yet learned how to fish, and is waiting there patiently for a parent to bring breakfast.

Meanwhile, a little farther out on the water, a group of seven killdeer flew in, and here’s one.

Even farther out on the water, one of three female/juvenile hooded mergansers drifted by.

In the same spot, but behind me and high above the river, a little flycatcher was flying sorties from this perch, and I recently learned that the yellow on the bottom side of the beak and prominent wingbars mark this as an eastern wood pewee, whose smooth jazz stylings I’ve been enjoying most of the summer.

While just a bit downstream, a similar-looking flycatcher but with a “dark head and bill along with weak wing bars” is an eastern phoebe.

On my way back south, I swung by the pollinator garden and found a monarch on the cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum) blossoms, but no viceroys today.

I didn’t expect to see and almost missed this snowberry clearwing working what’s left of the bee balm blossoms.

Lastly, at the burdock beside the soccer fields, a trio of fiery skippers were chasing each other around, and here’s one that parked for a moment.

I’m heading back up to Kohler-Andrae this afternoon and hope to get out for a walk again tomorrow morning. Wish me luck!

As promised, I drove up to Kohler-Andrae State Park yesterday afternoon to camp with Anne and her extended family, and after we got the tents and clotheslines all set up, the grandson and I went to go see what we could see.

We had hardly gotten a hundred yards from our campsite when we came across the very first eyed brown butterfly (Satyrodes eurydice eurydice) I have ever seen. Now that’s what I call a good start.

In the cattail marsh along the Black River, we saw a few marsh wrens and heard a few soras, but then it was time to return to camp for supper, and I didn’t wait too long after that to call it a night. The good news is that an early bedtime and sleeping on the ground make it easy to get up early, so I went for a walk and got to see the sun rise over Lake Michigan.

After trying to take pictures of a pair of deer while it was still way too dark and watching a quartet of four nervous deer prancing over a ridge, I came across this very curious solo deer who let me take 20 pictures, as it circled around me into the nice morning light.

Then it tried its best to get a good whiff of my cologne, which happened to be eau de bug-spray this morning.

I finally wished the deer well and continued on my way, but I didn’t get very far before I could not believe my luck to come upon this sight: my first Kohler-Andrae coyote!

The coyote was on a mission and wasn’t visible for more than 30 seconds, but either it or I had earned the attention of this buck in the distance.

The sun was warming up a beautiful morning, and here’s one of many monarch butterflies taking advantage of it.

As I hiked down the road from the north end of the park back toward the campground, a doe with her fawn came out to take a look.

Then the fawn must have thought, “well, since I’m here, I might as well check on breakfast.”

I eventually waved goodbye to those two, as well, and continued back toward the campsite. Along the way, I finally caught a glimpse of one of my other favorite masked bandits, the common yellowthroat.

Meanwhile, a big flock of white pelicans circled above the Black River to the west.

Here’s a closer look.

Finally, here’s another monarch butterfly glowing in the morning sun …. or is it?

Nope. The keen entomologists will recognize it as my very first viceroy butterfly (Limenitis archippus), which I read “was long thought to be a Batesian mimic of the monarch butterfly, but since the viceroy is also distasteful to predators, it is now considered a Müllerian mimic instead.” Cool, right?!?! Oh, and for the anthophiles out there, it’s sipping nectar from purple Joe-Pye weed (Eutrochium purpureum).

Not a bad start to a week of camping, eh? Not a bad start at all.

The air was cool, and the clouds were pretty thick this morning, especially compared to the weather we’ve been enjoying most of this summer, so I waited a bit before visiting Estabrook Park in hopes that a little more warmth and light might arrive. Results were mixed.

It did warm up enough for this monarch butterfly to be tanking up on a swamp milkweed, which is always a delight to see.

I missed the breakfast rush at the pond, however, so the wood ducks were camped out for their naps by the time I arrived. At least they were stationary so I could slow the shutter way down.

I checked the river, but the critters were quiet there, too, and farther from shore. In fact, the only other interesting sight I saw was this sharp-looking young ring-billed gull searching for scraps in the parking lot. Oh well.

This afternoon I’m heading up to Kohler-Andrae State Park for camping with Anne’s family, so I hope to have something pretty to show you from there soon.

Donna had arranged for her Sunday birding group to get a guided tour today of Horicon Marsh, the largest freshwater cattail marsh in the United States, by Carl Schwartz, a “past president … of the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology,” so I jumped at the chance. Horicon Marsh is the first “Wisconsin Birding Hotspot” listed on the Audubon Society website, so you might expect it to be good, and it did not disappoint.

The morning got off to a great start when we came across my very first black-necked stilt (Himantopus mexicanus), close cousin to the black-winged stilt I saw in South Holland last summer.

Before we knew it, two more had appeared, …

and they even attracted the attention of a nearby great egret, who flew over to see what they might be catching.

Another close cousin we saw was this one-of-many young common gallinule (Gallinula galeata), which are closely related to the moorhens we also saw in South Holland.

There were plenty of raptors about, and we spotted two red-tailed hawks, a young bald eagle, an osprey, and this northern harrier (Circus hudsonius). I’ve seen a harrier in Estabrook Park only one time, and I was able to recognize it by the distinctive white patch above its tail, which you can just make out in the image below.

A far more frequent sight in Estabrook are the pied-billed grebes, of which we saw several today. I guess Horicon is where they go after passing through Estabrook in the spring.

A huge treat, literally “the largest extant species of waterfowl, with a wingspan of 185 to 304.8 cm (6 ft 2 in to 10 ft 2 in),” were this family of trumpeter swans (Cygnus buccinator). We may have seen one in Estabrook when Lisa sent in pictures of a swan she spotted from afar near the islands on the Milwaukee River, or when I saw a flight high overhead in 2022, but they’ve always been too far away to tell trumpeter from tundra. Well, not today.

Here’s one of the cygnets looking pretty full-sized but still sporting a pink bill.

One of my favorite sights of this morning is this young ruddy duck (Oxyura jamaicensis). I know they’ve been seen in Estabrook, in fact the last reported sighting was by Donna just back in May, but they have eluded me so far. Maybe this fall, on their way south, eh? In any case, it was great to finally see one with my own eyes.

As the morning wore on, the pelicans started soaring, and here’s a little group in tight-ish formation.

Back to the water, we saw a couple of painted turtles, and here’s the more-photogenic one.

Finally, we stopped by the Marsh Haven Nature Center to check on their purple martins, which I don’t believe I’ve seen before, and here’s a youngster perched atop one of the martin houses.

And here’s an adult

What an adventure, right!

Here are the rest of the pictures from yesterday that I ran out of time to show you. As I already mentioned, I saw the two fawns on the east side of the pond, and one was prancing around a bit when they first spotted me. That’s the one who then came over to check me out. The little rascal got so close so quickly I struggled to get any pictures at all.

Then Mom appeared at the edge of the woods, …

And this is the picture I already showed you yesterday of the youngster looking for all the world as if it really wanted to stay and play.

After all that excitement, I could hardly believe my luck to find the young black-crowned night-heron perched over the pond again.

At the river, my run of luck continued with the appearance of these five (5!) lesser yellowlegs.

Here’s three of them neatly in a row.

And here’s the best portrait of a pair I could muster at that distance.

I was there too early in the day for the softshelled turtles to be up, so I headed back south along the river and soon came upon this inquisitive little red squirrel.

At the pollinator garden I got to watch a snowberry clearwing work its magic again.

Finally, at the small patch of burdock between the Oak Leaf Trail and Wilson Drive at the southern exit, a monarch posed just too nicely for me to ignore.