Snowy Egret at Lincoln Park

I received a “needs alert” email from eBird just past 12:30pm, that a Snowy Egret was seen at Lincoln Park, in Milwaukee. I cleaned up at work and made my way over there. I parked in the lot off Hampton Ave and walked to the river. I found it, about 300 yards north of the Hampton Ave bridge, where the river 3-ways around to the golf course. It was quite far away when I first saw it, so I thought I would try to get closer by going to the other shoreline, from the golf course side. There was no clear way to the river edge, so I ended up trucking through some thick wooded area before finding a deer runway that led to the river. When I popped out close to the shore, I was only about 100′ from the Egret. I’m not sure how I managed to get to the exact spot I needed, walking through what I did! I used the new Willow tree growth on the shoreline as a blind. I watched the bird for about 15 minutes, until it took flight East, around the tributary towards the golf course. When I first saw it from afar, it was actively feeding and moving around. Once I got closer, it wasn’t doing much, just preening and standing around. By the end of the afternoon, I heard it had moved Southeast down the river to Estabrook Park, near where the old damn used to be. Photos below are from early afternoon on 5/22. Enjoy!