Another Sunny Day

I arrived at the park in the afternoon today sometime after 2:30pm. By now it had warmed up quite a bit and it was yet another gorgeous day to be outside. Now that November is here, every day like this is all the more precious. With all the hiking I've been doing around the park this Spring, Summer and Fall, I need to really start keeping my posts shorter and more manageable. Right now I have over a dozen folders from previous visits that I've not posted yet. Because my goal with this blog is to document every single visit, I sometimes find myself in the situation of having to write about a walk I took months ago. Oh well, usually my photos are pretty good reminders of each and every day. The first good photo I got on today's visit was this Hairy Woodpecker. The light was really nice and I like that the background showed up darker than the bird. It's that time of year now when sadly, I start to get excited about Woodpeckers. The thing is, they really start to be the only interesting birds around on a regular basis. Excluding Owls I mean, which can be way tougher to find. I caught another Woodpecker today –a Red-bellied– in the act of probing a tree for insects. This is a male with the red crown coming at least over the top of the head. My last bird I was really happy to see and photograph today was a Fox Sparrow. I'd been seeing one here and there but struggling to get a shot. This one posed for me along the wood chip trail on the southwest side. He was kind of half in the sun and half in the shade but at least I got close to it. From it's bill, it appeared to have been eating some dark berries. I'm guessing probably Buckthorn berries. Other birds spotted today included; Dark-eyed Junco, American Robin (oodles of them), Blue Jay, Cedar Waxwing (juveniles), Northern Cardinal, Black-capped Chickadees, and the Muscovy Duck was still there too! Oh, I also found a dead, pure white mouse way out in the field while hiking off trail. I thought that kind of odd and don't know what to make of it. I guess it's just an albino.