Chicago's park trees and their residents

So even though I was in Chicago for the briefest amount of time I did manage to see a few birds other than those conveniently placed kinglets. Luckily for me, and Chicago's wildlife, the city has parks which make excellent provision for birds.

My first stop was a group of crab apple trees. I'd guess these were planted mainly for their floral benefits earlier in the year. At this time of year though they have a different attraction -fruit! This hermit thrush was taking full advantage of the situation.

In the same tree, a white-throated sparrow was also indulging in some tucker whilst staying fluffy and warm. Of course when you have a number of trees of this quality producing food it will attract a lot of birds which will take full advantage and will stay around to do so. as well as attracting insects and hence other birds. I understand October is late for ovenbird in this area but the one below was busy hopping around below the crab apples to get his share of the feast.

Planting fruiting trees is just one way in which Chicago's parks impressed me - I'll be talking about some of the other attractions in future.