Black and White Warbler and Comfrey at Sunnybrook Park / May 14, 2019

Perhaps the 7 degree and wet weather made the warblers decide to spend the day foraging at Sunnybrook Park rather than winging their ways north

We had 7 warbler species this morning and I was able to get somewhat distant photos of 3 of them:

Black and White Warblers behave and look somewhat like White-breasted Nuthatches:

Black and White Warbler
Black and White Warbler

A warbler that can surprise you with flashes of red and black is the American Redstart:

American Redstart (male)

This Black-throated Blue Warbler was singing its cheese – cheese – cheeeeeeese song:

Black-throated Blue Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler

Species list: mallard, turkey vulture, belted kingfisher, hairy woodpecker, downy woodpecker, northern flicker, pileated woodpecker, blue jay,  black-capped chickadee, gray catbird, American robin, blue-gray gnatcatcher, ruby-crowned kinglet, black and white warbler, yellow warbler, black-throated blue warbler, pine warbler, ovenbird, northern waterthrush, American redstart, house sparrow, red-winged blackbird, brown-headed cowbird, northern cardinal, rose-breasted grosbeak, American goldfinch, chipping sparrow, swamp sparrow, song sparrow.  (29 species)

Downy Woodpecker (male)
Song Sparrow

Park scenes:

This morning’s group:

Common Comfrey is a lovely native of Eurasia. It is cultivated and sometimes escapes to roadside, ditches, fields. yards and disturbed ground:

Common Comfrey (Symphytum officinale)
Common Comfrey (Symphytum officinale)
Common Comfrey (Symphytum officinale)

You can see why this plant is called toothwort:

Cut-leaved Toothwort (Cardamine concatenata)

Some fungi:

Dryad’s Saddle
Inky Cap Mushroom

Other botany:

Celandine (Chelidonium majus)
Hop-tree (Ptelea trifoliata)
Ostrich Fern
Honewort (Cryptotanenia canadensis)
Tartarian Honeysuckle (Lonicera tatarica)
Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadense)
Virginia Waterleaf (Hydrophyllum virginianum)
Starry False Solomon-seal (Maianthemum stellatum)
Red Trillium (Trillium erectum)

NATURE POETRY

Lampman, Archibald (1861-1899) The Passing Of Spring

No longer in the meadow coigns shall blow
  The creamy blood-root in her suit of gray,
  But all the first strange flowers have passed away,
Gone with the childlike dreams that touched us so;
April is spent, and summer soon shall go,
  Swift as a shadow o'er the heads of men,
  And autumn with the painted leaves; and then,
When fires are set, and windows blind with snow,
  We shall remember, with a yearning pang,
  How in the poplars the first robins sang,
The wind-flower risen from their leafy cots,
  When life was gay and spring was at the helm,
The maple full of little crimson knots,
  And all that delicate blossoming of the elm.

Miles Hearn

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