Happy New Year!

I love starting the new year by going out photographing. Some years the weather is quite warm and lovely. And some years it is bloody cold! Today was one of the bloody cold ones.

Oh well, I put on as many layers of clothes as I could, grabbed a big cup of coffee and headed out. It was a balmy 2 degrees as I drove down to my favorite spot. But before I got to my favorite spot, I went to check on the bald eagles I learned about last spring. No one was around and it was too cold to wait around. So I headed to my favorite spot.

The large lake was completely frozen from all the sub zero temps we have had lately. The back pond usually stays open, so I walked back to see what was going on.

It was almost completely frozen........

The geese were all gathered around relaxing and napping. Even with frost on their backs.....

When my feet started to freeze up, I continued on to see what else was going on. It was quite quiet except for this cute downy woodpecker......

Here's what the big lake looks like. A bit different from a nice summer day.....

As I headed to the car, there were at least 4-5 rabbits hopping around....

Not much was going on, so I went to check out a new place called crown lake and kestrel lake. Just driving by, I could see it was very quiet. So I put it in my memory banks to check out in the spring.

Then I headed for prospect park in Wheatridge.

 I have seen this sign for at least 6 months. Finally grabbed a pic today. $650 for lunch seems quite expensive.....hahaha

Prospect park was a winter wonderland.....

I did the loop that goes by Tabor lake and even that was completely frozen. The only open water was right near the parking lot, so I headed there to grab some pics.

Here's a ring billed gull landing......

There were two guys sitting photographing the birds. They were there when I drove in and still there about an hour later. Brrrrrrrrr

Here's a shoveler napping.....

A robin flew up next to me as I was photographing the water birds....

I thought there were just shovelers, geese, gulls and golden eyes. But then I spotted a canvas back duck snoozing. There were about 3 males and 5 females all napping.

Finally one of the guys woke for a minute to give me a decent pic....

 Here's a sleeping goose....

The golden eyes were quite active.......

I attempted to get some pics of him diving. It took several tries to get this sequence.....

This mallard was chillin on the ice....Brrrrrrr

It was a balmy 11 degrees by now but I was done, so I headed home to get Hazel out for  hike.
As I was driving up Indiana I saw this red tail dive down and grab some lunch. But by the time I was able to turn around, he had already chowed down. Oh well.....

Hazel was patiently waiting for me when I got home. We headed to the trails by the silver lake coffee company in north Boulder. By now it was 22 degrees so it felt like a heat wave :)
So we had a great time!

Haapy New Year to all! May 2015 be an amazing year!