I seem to have left these birds out of the list of the Forest Park birds…

The PURPLE MARTIN is very difficult to photograph, as it rarely alights long enough! But I came across this condo built for them:

There seems to be some concern about these birds; I found this signboard giving details about the bird:

And it also said that the population of these birds is declining:

However, the wiki entry lists these birds’ extinction chances as “least concern”

Certainly, they look fairly plentiful to ME! I hope it’s not a case similar to that of the BARN OWL in Bangalore…I joined a Barn Owl Conservation group, and later Karthik laughingly told me it was totally unnecessary, because the increase in the rat population would automatically bring the Barn Owls back to Bangalore (which they did!)

Here’s the common BARN SWALLOW:

Another lovely bird in the Des Peres creek is this lovely BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERON

This one’s the BROWN-HEADED COWBIRD :

And since I have found these birds very shy compared to the other everyday birds, and have been going around hoping to get photographs of them, this morning I found three of these RED CARDINALS looking down on me from our own rooftop! Before I could get the camera, one had flown, and the other two allowed me only a single shot, before they, too, disappeared over the roof:

Update: I had got this post and id’s all messed up! A big thanks to the three people who took the effort and time to correct me! did not even post a comment, she emailed me so that I could correct the id's without appearing quite the klutz I am...but I think my mistakes, as much as my observations, should be on public record...