This is the time of year to see adult birds feeding their young.

We were fortunate to have a long look at a male Flicker feeding his son. Male Northern Flickers have a black “mustache” as both of these birds did.

Species list: double-crested cormorant,  mallard, killdeer, mourning dove,  belted kingfisher, downy woodpecker, northern flicker, blue jay, black-capped chickadee, gray catbird, American robin,  European starling, red-eyed vireo, yellow warbler, house sparrow, red-winged blackbird, common grackle, Baltimore oriole, northern cardinal, song sparrow.  (20 species)

Today’s group on this 25 degree, overcast and humid morning. It did rain for about 20 minutes.

You never know what you will see during a nature walk. Here are mating Snapping Turtles:

Park scenes:

Fringed Loosestrife has a yellow blossom which always hangs upside down:

Growing beside the river was a cultivated cousin of Fringed Loosestrife which has escaped from a garden.

If you see black stains on the ground these days, look up and you will see a White Mulberry tree.

Other botany:

NATURE POETRY

Nightingales – Robert Bridges

Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come,

And bright in the fruitful valleys, the streams, wherefrom

Ye learn your song:

Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there,

Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air

Bloom the year long!

Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams:

Our song is the voice of the desire, that hunts our dreams,

A throe of the heart,

Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound,

No dying cadence nor long sigh can sound,

For all our art.

Along aloud in the ruptured ear of men

We pour our dark nocturnal secret; and then,

As night is withdrawn

From these sweet-springing meads and bursting bough of May

Dream, while innumerable choir of day

Welcome the dawn.

Miles Hearn