Thursday Fun Day

   

 Yea! I had nothing scheduled for today. Sure I could have cleaned the house, did some marketing for my massage practice,etc etc etc. But it seemed like a better idea to go out photographing!

I headed down to my favorite spot to see what was going on.......

First thing I saw was this very cute rabbit! We had sub zero temps last week and it looks like his winter coat is warm, thick and cozy!

The lakes around Boulder had not frozen over but Belmar lake did. It's very shallow so I was not surprised. There was some open water where everyone was hanging out.....
                                                                                                                                                                     

This cute female mallard walked up to say hi.......

There were mostly canada geese in the open water. I also saw mallards, gulls and shovelers.

As I was watching the geese, I spotted some golden eyes mixed in. So damn cute!

I did my usual lap but did not see much. So I headed back to the open water area. This area was a bit more active.

I saw a few juncos........

a few gold finches.......

And this northern flicker.....I got this pic standing right under right under him.

I backed up a bit and got this angle......

And then I got him taking off.....Sweet!

 Then I heard a familiar sound and looked up to see a small flock of robins. Yes, robins! 

We have an interesting scenario here in Colorado. Our robins head south and then robins from Canada come to Colorado for the winter. It usually happens later in the year but I bet the big cold spell the whole country had speeded things up.....

Just as I got back to the car I heard another familiar sound. Now blue jays are very common back east where I grew up. So common, they really don't get much respect......

But out here they are not as abundant so they are worthy of getting a pic or two :)

Well, not much else was going on, so I drove over to Prospect park in Wheatridge.....

I headed towards Tabor lake and saw this cute couple enjoying the sun!

And I spotted a hawk flying by......

I looped around and saw this western grebe just hanging out......

I see these every winter all over the place.... this is a bullock's oriole nest. Hard to see when the leaves are out, so I love seeing them in the winter. Quite amazing that they can build this amazing nest!

I headed back to prospect lake by the parking lot.

This is a male gadwall. I just love the colors on this guy!

Then I noticed the gadwall and coot were hanging out. Aaah, I have seen this before during the winter. The gadwall is a dabbler and the coot is a diver. So sometimes the diver will bring up food to share with the dabbler. There was no food sharing but it was fun to see them hanging out.....

The golden eye ducks were here too!

This is a female bufflehead. The males were out too far to get a decent pic.....

Brrrrrrrrrr but they seemed fine.......

And this was a first of the season ( FOS) female lesser scaup.......

And finally this mallard was enjoying himself! First a bath then flapping those wings!

 I headed home to get the Hazel dog. We checked out a new place today. Some open space on Cherryvale road. We had a great time and plan to go back to explore some more very soon!

Thanks for reading!