The Brown Creeper is usually seen spirally upward around trunks of big trees, then planing down to the base of the next tree, only to repeat he process.

Brown Creepers are very small and delicate with a slender curved bill.

They are found all over North America almost to the limit of trees.

In the Toronto area they are among the first birds to arrive in spring and the last to leave in fall. I occasionally see them in winter.

This fall, many Common Redpolls are appearing in our area. We had about a dozen this morning:

Other birds:

Species list: mute swan, Canada goose, mallard, gadwall, bufflehead, American wigeon, wood duck, long-tailed duck, lesser scaup, red-breasted merganser, hooded merganser, ring-billed gull, herring gull, belted kingfisher, downy woodpecker, brown creeper, black-capped chickadee, European starling, house sparrow, American robin, northern cardinal, American goldfinch, common redpoll.  (23 species)

Park views:

Today’s group:

Thanks to Carl McCrosky for these photos of a Saw-whet Owl at his Amherst island home:

NATURE POETRY

Wild Geese by Mary OliverYou do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Miles Hearn