A bald cardinal in Estabrook Park

Location: Estabrook Park, Milwaukee Co.
Observation date: 6/27/09, 7:25-10:30 a.m.
Weather: 70°F rising to 80°F, sunny, winds calm
Number of species: 29

It was pretty quiet in the park this morning. No Osprey circled high overhead. No Peregrine Falcon flew down the bike trail. (These treats were highlights of my walk last week.) No Eastern Wood-Pewee sang pee-ah-WEE! to me from the trees. And try as I might, I wasn't able to find a single Baltimore Oriole. Not one.

I wasn't disappointed. It's the end of June, after all, and we're in southeastern Wisconsin. The White-crowned and White-throated Sparrows, the spunky Ruby- and Golden-crowned Kinglets, the colorful warblers, and all the other birds that make birdwatching so exciting in April and May have come and gone, and are now on breeding grounds far to the north, and the orioles, wood-pewees, and other species that stay around all summer are busy tending nests and eggs. Many already have offspring.

Present duties put a premium on attracting as little attention as possible. Nonetheless, I was able to watch two Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers flying to and from a nest located right alongside the bike trail. If you stop to consider all the bikes that roll north and south beneath it each day -- it's only a couple steps away from the Congress Avenue entrance -- you might conclude the pair chose a poor site. But the nest is very high, and not very big. To find it, you either have to know what to look for or be very lucky (as I was).

Later on, just south of the falls, I watched a shiny purple Common Grackle land on a rock in the river, jab its head into the water, and come up holding a wriggling crayfish in its bill. As I got over the shock of learning that grackles fish, he shot me a quick look and then flew off to enjoy his meal. I've read that as many as seven species of crayfish have been recorded in Milwaukee County, and one, the Rusty Crayfish Orconectes rusticus, is an invasive that the state would like to get rid of. Which one the grackle caught, I can't say, and that bothers me.

The best part of this morning's walk, though, was that I got to see something that I normally only hear about from readers who call or e-mail me at Birder's World magazine -- a male Northern Cardinal with a blue head.

Except for its noggin, the bird looked just like the pretty bird pictured in your field guide. His body, wings, and tail were red. His beak was bright orange. His eyes were shiny and dark. But his head didn't have a feather on it. Instead, it was covered with bumpy, reptilian skin the color of a battleship. I wasn't carrying a camera, so I couldn't photograph it, but you can see a photo of another cardinal that looks just like the one I saw here. It's quite a sight, really something. Really ugly is what I mean.

Here's the full list of birds I saw:

Mallard     9
Ring-billed Gull     17
Rock Pigeon     5
Mourning Dove     3
Chimney Swift     2
Downy Woodpecker     3
Hairy Woodpecker     2
Great Crested Flycatcher     1
Red-eyed Vireo     10
Blue Jay     4
American Crow     5
Tree Swallow     1
Northern Rough-winged Swallow     6
Black-capped Chickadee     16
House Wren     2
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher     11
American Robin     19
Gray Catbird     10
Cedar Waxwing     12
Yellow Warbler     1
Chipping Sparrow     1
Song Sparrow     3
Northern Cardinal     11
Indigo Bunting     3
Red-winged Blackbird     5
Common Grackle     13
Brown-headed Cowbird     2
American Goldfinch     11
House Sparrow     5

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Comments

bird_girl wrote re: A bald cardinal in Estabrook Park on Thu, Jul 2 2009 5:00 PM I had a bald tufted titmouse visit my feeders a couple of weeks ago, and I was quite alarmed at the sight.  His ear was completely exposed, but he otherwise looked and acted healthy.  I haven't seen a bald titmouse since, so I'm hopeful that he morphed into normalcy.  (To see pictures, see my Flickr link above.) --Dawn