An Excursion to Powder Valley

A white breasted nuthatch.

Just before lunch today, I took a walk on the Broken Ridge trail of Powder Valley Park in the Kirkwood/Sunset Hills borderlands. It was so warm as to make a coat unnecessary. Among many things, I saw a white-breasted nuthatch (the first I had ever seen), numerous bluejays, a freshly dead animal of middling size in a creek (its head was not visible, but I suspect an opossum), a woodpecker (either downy or hairy), and a large congregation of some sort of animals making a vile retching noise at each other high up in the trees (I could not see any of them, but I imagine they were squirrels, the only woodland animal I know of that is capable of such inexcusable noises.) In all, a very profitable trip.