For activity two: At the park I saw some kind of tern, lots of songbirds, and a nest with great horned owls. Within the category of songbirds, I was able to recognize the warblers because of the yellow coloring and their body shape, but some others were not as easy to differentiate to such a newbie like me.
For activity three: my favorite bird in my neighborhood so far is the one I could recognize, a Cardinal. I like that the males are so brightly colored and easily noticeable, and once I see the male if I look around him I’ll see a female pretty much always. So I like that they seem to travel as a pair.