Yesterday, we took advantage of our fine weather this week to walk in Forest Park. Pictured is the peak sighting of the day of a Little Blue Heron. This is a rare species for the park. More common is the Great Blue Heron, which we also spotted, as it overflew us later. It being a weekday, the park was relatively empty, except for the zoo, which had dozens of school bus parked outside of it, plus quite full parking lots. Other than the Little Blue Heron, it was a case of rounding up all of the usual suspects, at least in the bird department. Also, the flowers were nice, and I got a few good pics of them too, for posting later in the week. Throughout the park the grass was looking pretty long. A combination of a wet spring and the city being unable to staff their parks department, because of the overall labor shortage. Its companion organization, Forest Park Forever, a non-profit dedicated to maintaining the park, doesn’t seem to have the same difficulty. We saw dozens of individuals and teams scattered around the park, each with one of the organization’s signature carts. We spoke with one of these people and he explained that the city is responsible for mowing the grass, while they concentrate on pruning, planting and weeding, i.e., everything else.