Brown Creepers subtlety announce their presence with a very high-pitched “pseee”. They are usually seen spiralling upward around the trunk of big trees, then planing down to the base of the next tree, only to repeat the process. They are among the last bird species to migrate south and the first to head north even while winter still continues. The two that we saw on this 4 degree, overcast morning were having great fun flying in circles around each other.

Some botany:

Species list: mute swan, Canada goose, mallard,  gadwall, bufflehead, long-tailed duck, red-breasted merganser, ring-billed gull, downy woodpecker, blue jay, black-capped chickadee, brown creeper, American robin, northern cardinal, American goldfinch, American tree sparrow.  (16 species)

Park scenes:

Today’s group:

NATURE POETRY

The air’s so appetizin’; and the landscape through the haze
Of a crisp and sunny morning of the early autumn days
Is a pictur’ that no painter has the colorin’ to mock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.  – James Whitcomb Riley (1849–1916)

Miles Hearn