My owl friends: Another Magical Day!

Sunday mornings are my favorite day to go out photographing. It's nice and quiet with little to no traffic to deal with. But when I saw the weather report last night, it did not look promising. The forecast was for mostly cloudy skies which is not good for photographing wildlife. But I really wanted to go out to Barr lake, so I decided to gamble that the weather people were gonna be wrong.

As I was driving towards Barr lake which is east of Boulder, the skies were full of dark clouds. But I was already heading that way, so I went for it. And I am so glad I did as the skies lightened up and I had another magical day! Here's what happened........

The burrowing owls are usually my first place to stop and check on. This guy was just waking up and light was not the best, but I grabbed a few pics and moved on. I drove part of the DIA loop but all was quiet, so I drove into to Barr lake.

Here's a sign you see as you cross the bridge.....

I normally go check on the barn owls first but I decided to change it up today, so I headed right into the refuge area. I quickly spotted a pair of downy woodpeckers checking out a potential nest.

Here's the female......

Then a starling showed up to look at the same nesting spot. The woodpeckers did not take kindly to that and chased him away!

Here's the male. The red spot on his head is how you can tell who is who.....

One of the reasons I wanted to get out to Barr lake is because it is a great place to see bullock's orioles! They do not stick around long. They start returning to Colorado in May, build their nests, raise their young and they are gone by the end of July. So the time was now! As I was watching the woodpeckers, I heard that distinctive call of the bullock's orioles. So I looked behind me and there he was posing for me!

I felt very lucky to get these pics as the orioles tend to stay higher in the trees. I continued on and spotted my first western kingbird of the season. I only saw a few today but I know they will be around all summer and fall too.

The redwing blackbirds are everywhere singing up a storm!

I decided to walk all the way out to the gazebo. Not much was going on but I did see this tree swallow......

As I was leaving the gazebo, I spotted a pair of western grebes......

And a pair of wood ducks were looking for a good spot to nest......

After the gazebo, I headed back and spotted a huge family of geese! I counted 14 goslings!

And this robin found a tasty worm for breakfast! Yum!

Then I spotted a female bullocks gathering nesting material. It looks like she was reusing some material from an old oriole's nest!

And a spotted towhee showed up to get his pic taken.....

I made it over to the barn owl nesting box. She was snoozing away.....

I was ready to go, so I headed towards the car. This butterfly caught my eye. He's a tiny guy as he fits on the head of a dandelion!

I figured it was worth a shot to go by the burrowing owl area as it's only about a 5 minute drive from the park. As I approached the area, a van was parked on the side of the road closest to the owl area. I figured it was another photographer and the owls must be around. So I quickly parked the car out of the way and walked around the van. Much to my surprise, a burrowing owl was perched on the fence post less than 8 feet from where the van was parked. I quickly grabbed a few shots in case he flew away. But he just sat there like he owned the place! Which I guess he does! Then the van slowly backed up and the driver motioned me to come closer. Huh? But I did and then I circled around a bit to get the sun behind me. And still this guy just hung out posing for both of us!

The guy driving the van got out and introduced himself as Frank. He was a nice older guy who goes out photographing everyday. Seems he stops by here quite often and has gotten to know this handsome owl!
Well, I could not believe my luck! I probably took over 200 pics because I could......

After posing for us, he flew into the field and grabbed something to eat. It was hard to tell but it looks like some kind of insect.

Then he flew to his burrow which is an old prairie dog home and checked on his mate who is currently sitting on the eggs in the burrow. So finally I pulled myself away and went back to check out the DIA loop. Again, all was quiet so I drove back to see my new friend, the burrowing owl. Ha! He was back on the dance post.....