There are 5 species of little flycatchers with wing-bars. They can be identified by habitat and voice. The willow-filled fields at Marie Curtis Park are perfect for Willow Flycatchers:
The larger Eastern Kingbird is also a member of the flycatcher family:
Some birders took us to a tree with an unusual sight: both a Great Egret and a Great Blue Heron were standing on it on this 15 degree cloudy morning:
Species list: great blue heron, great egret, mute swan, Canada goose, mallard, American black duck, hooded merganser, spotted sandpiper, ring-billed gull, common tern, chimney swift, downy woodpecker, northern flicker, willow flycatcher, eastern kingbird, barn swallow, tree swallow, cliff swallow, rough-winged swallow, black-capped chickadee, northern mockingbird, gray catbird, American robin, European starling, warbling vireo, red-eyed vireo, yellow warbler, American redstart, house sparrow, red-winged blackbird, brown-headed cowbird, common grackle, Baltimore oriole, northern cardinal, American goldfinch, savannah sparrow, song sparrow. (37 species)
Many plants are coming into flower:
This morning’s group:
The Oven Bird
By Robert Frost
There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.