Have a look at this bird:

and now this one:

They look a lot alike. The principal difference is that the first bird has a cleanish white chest and the second does not. The bird with the white-ish chest is a female Common Merganser. The other is a female Red-breasted Merganser.

Common Mergansers are also a few cms longer.

Species list: mute swan, mallard, common goldeneye, bufflehead, long-tailed duck, lesser scaup, common goldeneye, red-breasted merganser, common merganser, ring-billed gull, blue jay, black-capped chickadee, white-breasted nuthatch, American robin, brown creeper, European starling, northern cardinal.  (17 species)

Some botany on this 3 degree, overcast morning:

Park scenes:

Thanks to Joan Cotton for these photos of a Coyote crossing to the Island on the ice taken 2 years ago during one of these walks:

This morning’s group:

NATURE POETRY

I hear a murmur faint and sweet,
And lo! The ice breaks as I look,
And living waters touch my feet.         – Jane Goodwin Austin (1831–94)

Miles Hearn