Thanks to Eugene Knapik for finding and identifying the following on this 24 degree, overcast at the start morning:

Park views:

Species list: double-crested cormorant, great egret, Canada goose, mallard, killdeer, spotted sandpiper, ring-billed gull, mourning dove, downy woodpecker, northern flicker, rough-winged swallow, blue jay, black-capped chickadee, American robin, European starling, cedar waxwing, warbling vireo, red-eyed vireo, house sparrow, red-winged blackbird, northern cardinal, house finch, American goldfinch,  song sparrow.  (24 species)

Botany:

Today’s Group:

NATURE POETRY

Home-thoughts, from abroad

Oh, to be in England 
Now that April’s there, 
And whoever wakes in England 
Sees, some morning, unaware, 
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf 
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, 
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough 
In England—now! 

And after April, when May follows, 
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows! 
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge 
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover 
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray’s edge— 
That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, 
Lest you should think he never could recapture 
The first fine careless rapture! 
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, 
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew 
The buttercups, the little children’s dower 
—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!  – Robert Browning

Miles Hearn