Parakeets?

Not much new at the park in the last few days. The one strange sighting over my lunch hour today was a couple of parakeets (Budgerigars, I think) hanging out in the trees along the west side of the lake. At first I had assumed that the harsh chirping that I was hearing was just a group of house sparrows until I saw a small long-tailed yellow/white/blue bird fly between the trees. I guess somebody is missing a pet.

I also saw another field sparrow over lunch hour.

Over the weekend, I took a trip down to the Minnesota Valley NWR, and had a really good afternoon of birding. Beautiful weather, a bunch of first-of-the-year sightings (white-throated sparrow, tree swallow, trumpeter swan, cedar waxwing, ruddy duck, lesser scaup, redhead) and a good look at my first red-necked grebe (thanks to a look through a friendly stranger's scope). I also saw a ton of yellow-rumped warblers, some hooded mergansers and killdeer, horned grebes, bald eagles, blue-winged teals, ruby-crowned kinglets, brown-headed cowbirds, etc. etc.