My owl friends: Walden Ponds

I love this time of year! The cool crisp mornings turning into warm afternoons are the best. So of course photographing was on the top of my to do list today.

I thought about heading down to my favorite place but decided to stay closer to home. So I headed over to Walden ponds. It's a 10 minute drive from my house which is quite the luxury. Usually I am driving 45 minutes to an hour to get somewhere.

Here is what I saw when I got there......

I scanned cottonwood marsh. Not much was going on. Mostly ring billed gulls and mallards, so I continued down the trail. I spotted this cute lesser goldfinch. Looks like a youngster as you can still see some downy fluff.....

I headed over to the osprey nest area. They will be heading south soon, so I was hoping to see one or more of them. This is their nest site......

Sweet! I spotted a bird flying towards me. Hawk? Nope, an osprey! I wasn't able to get the best pics but was so fun to watch him/her go fishing. He/she hit the water hard a few times but came up empty.....

Another spectacular view!

I had seen a few other downy woodpeckers, so finally got a decent pic. This is a female as there is no red area on the head.

Another quiet day but I could not complain as it was a spectacular day in Boulder, Co.
I decided to take the long way home and go by the northwest corner of the boulder rez. The bald eagle is still hanging around, so I hoped to spot him in a good spot for a pic. No eagle but did spot this red tailed hawk hanging out near the old brick house.