Camouflaged House Sparrow at cavity

This is NOT my MAIN photo of the day - I'm wondering if this one or the third one is being seen by some people as the main one, again. Also, it's almost 12:00 noon and there are only eight new photos showing from my Contacts! Is everyone out enjoying the weather, or is Flickr acting up yet again??

For maybe a week, I have been having a problem getting my photos to be bright enough. So weird - I never had this happen before. They seem to look OK when I edit them the night before, then, when I post them on Flickr the following morning, they almost always look too dark.

Yesterday morning, 9 April 2016, friends Dorothy and Stephen led a group of us on a birding walk at Carburn Park. Most enjoyable, except for the very strong winds! Down by the river, especially, we were almost blown off our feet. Amazing that any bird can deal with that, but we still ended up seeing a good number of species, including this little House Sparrow busy preparing a tree cavity for a nest. The House Sparrow is an introduced species here.

"One of about 25 species in the genus Passer, the House Sparrow is native to most of Europe, the Mediterranean region, and much of Asia. Its intentional or accidental introductions to many regions, including parts of Australia, Africa, and the Americas, make it the most widely distributed wild bird." From Wikipedia.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Sparrow

www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/house_sparrow/id

I will add our leaders' final list of species:

Birding for Beginners, Saturday 9 April, 2016. Carburn Park. 9:00 a.m.-11:15 a.m. Sunny, N.Wind 49 kph. 7-10 degrees C. 22 participants.

1. Canada Goose – 20
2. Common Goldeneye – 10
3. Mallard – 10
4. Common Merganser – 4
5. Hooded Merganser – 1
6. Ring-billed Gull – 34
7. Franklin Gull – 2
8. Bald Eagle – 1
9. Bohemian Waxwings – 12
10. Black-capped Chickadees – 11
11. American Crow – 6
12. Northern Flicker – 6
12. House Finch – 4
13. Magpie – 6
14. Merlin – 1
15. Red-breasted Nuthatch - 3
16. Raven – 10
17. American Robin – 15
18. Starling – 2
19. House Sparrow – 4
20. Tree Swallow – 9
21. Yellow-rumped Warbler - 1
22. Downy Woodpecker – 5

White-tailed Deer – 6
Black Squirrel – 6

Leaders: Bernie Diebolt, Dorothy&Stephen Spring

Many thanks, Dorothy and Stephen, for giving up a Saturday morning for us all. As always, the trip to Tim Hortons for coffee and lunch after the walk was great.