Communing with Nature

I'm still nursing a flare-up of an old knee injury and avoid driving as much as I can. On Saturday, my husband therefore took me out on a picnic to North Park so I could get out of the house for a while. I had barely set up our lunch in a picnic shelter when a male cardinal showed up on the next bench. My husband threw a small piece of cookie on the ground and the bird picked it up and flew away with it. I had never seen a cardinal that was so unafraid of people and begging for food. We also saw an adult flicker feeding an immature flicker on the grass surrounding the shelter. As usual in those cases when I'm not in the mood to carry heavy camera equipment around, I see great birds.
A while later, we set up chairs at a wetland area where we were greeted by a yellow warbler. It flitted around us, chattering all the while and landing just a few feet away from us. I will probably never see a warbler this close when I have a camera handy. We also saw several groups of ducks across the inlet. A group of children from a nearby party flushed out three tiny ducklings - cute as buttons - that paddled across the water to get away from them. About an hour later, an adult duck (probably a wood duck) called out frantically for her kids and the three ducklings swam across the water again. On the other bank (and out of my sight), however, they were greeted by shrieks of annoyance. They had approached the wrong mother! Then they paddled around in circles, not sure what to do next. After a short while, all turned quiet again and I sincerely hope that the little ones were united with their mother. They were much too young to make it on their own.
By mid-afternoon, everything went quiet around the wetland. Even the frog that had croaked from time to time went mute. We packed up and went home again, happy with the discoveries we made.