Ducklings always appear so well-behaved!

We had several looks at both Killdeer and Spotted Sandpiper:

Species list: double-crested cormorant, Canada goose, mallard, American black duck,  red-tailed hawk, spotted sandpiper, killdeer, ring-billed gull, mourning dove, chimney swift, belted kingfisher, red-bellied woodpecker, northern flicker, great crested flycatcher, rough-winged swallow, blue jay, American crow, American robin, blue-gray gnatcatcher, European starling, warbling vireo, yellow warbler, house sparrow, red-winged blackbird, common grackle, Baltimore oriole, northern cardinal, rose-breasted grosbeak, American goldfinch, song sparrow.  (30 species)

Some botany on this 18 degree, overcast morning:

This morning’s group:

Park scenes:

NATURE POETRY

The Valley’s Singing Day by Robert Frost

The sound of the closing outside door was all.
You made no sound in the grass with your footfall,
As far as you went from the door, which was not far;
But had awakened under the morning star
The first song-bird that awakened all the rest.
He could have slept but a moment more at best.
Already determined dawn began to lay
In place across a cloud the slender ray
For prying across a cloud the slender ray
For prying beneath and forcing the lids of sight,
And loosing the pent-up music of over-night.
But dawn was not to begin their ‘pearly-pearly;
(By which they mean the rain is pearls so early,
Before it changes to diamonds in the sun),
Neither was song that day to be self-begun.
You had begun it, and if there needed proof–
I was asleep still under the dripping roof,
My window curtain hung over the sill to wet;
But I should awake to confirm your story yet;
I should be willing to say and help you say
That once you had opened the valley’s singing day.

Miles Hearn