At 11:00 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, I heard a Carolina Wren singing its characteristic rollicking, three-parted "teakettle, teakettle, teakettle" song at Crosby Lake Park in St. Paul. The bird was in dense undergrowth on the extreme western end of the small lake that is west of Crosby Lake. The bird sang for about five minutes, but I was unable to see it. At 9:00 a.m. on Friday, July 24, I returned to the main parking lot at Crosby Lake Park and immediately heard a Carolina Wren singing several hundred feet to the south in the bottomland forest between the parking lot and the Mississippi River. Using the Merlin app on her phone, another birder named Sharon confirmed that the song was that of a Carolina Wren. Sharon and I looked for the bird for about 20 minutes as it sang intermittently from dense undergrowth and gradually moved south along the fence line separating the western border of the park and the boat marina to the west of the park. Through our binoculars at a distance of 30 to 40 feet, we finally saw it perch for several seconds on the top of a large cottonwood trunk that was on the forest floor. The bird was considerably larger than a House Wren but a similar shape. Its crown, back and wings were a uniform, rich cinnamon color. Its breast and belly were white or whitish buff. It had a distinctive white stripe over its eye. The bird continued to sing in the same area until about 9:30 a.m. At about 9:25 a.m., 100 feet east of where we saw the Carolina Wren, Sharon and I saw a Brown Creeper about 20 feet up on the trunk of a large cottonwood. We both observed it through binoculars at a distance of 30 feet: a small bird with a very thin body, white underparts with a mottled brown back. The bird was silent as it spiraled up the bark of the cottonwood. Dave ZumetaSt. Paul
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