Eclipse 2017

     Of course I had to go down to my favorite place for the eclipse! I was very curious to see if the birds behaviors would be affected by the eclipse. Since I'm so familiar with what is "normal" it seemed like the perfect place to go. 

 My normal routine when I go out photographing is to get up early( before sunrise), get Hazel and the kitties taken care of, grab my coffee and head out for the morning....

But today I had to change it up. The eclipse was going to be at peak at 11:47am in the Denver area. So there was no reason to get down there early. So Hazel and I did a nice long walk. Then I had coffee and breakfast before heading down. I knew one issue would be traffic. And it was as it took an additional 1/2 hour to get to my favorite place but I allowed for that.

I arrived around 10am and it was HOT! Luckily there were lots of shady spots to get out of the hot Colorado sun!

I spotted a family of gadwalls. Here's a cute female......

And there were about 7 snowy egrets around! They put on quite the show!

A great blue heron flew by......

Oh yea! Best reflection shot that I've ever gotten!

Most of snowy shots were taken during the eclipse. I really thought that at 92% of totality, it would have gotten darker but no such luck! The light got a bit funky and I tried to capture it was photos of one of the ponds at different times but all the pics looked the same. Bummer... but what was noticeable was the temperature drop. I'd guess around 5-7 degrees which was very welcome!

There were quite a few people around the ponds enjoying the eclipse. I met a nice young gal and an older woman. The older gal had some eclipse glasses and happily shared them with us. So it was fun to exchange comments and oohs and aaahs as the eclipse happened.

As the sun came back and the temps heated back up, I decided to do one last lap to check on all by bird friends. I never saw the swainsons or the coopers hawks but I did find these young wood ducks. Boy have they grown since I saw them a few months ago.
They were very busy stretching and flapping their wings. I don't think they can fly yet but I bet they're close!

This is a young male wood duck......

And here's a young female wood duck. Even at this early age, it's possible to see what sex they are.....

And finally this gadwall was very hungry as she was chowing down...

Besides the temperature drops, the shadows got funky! Here's my hand. It should be crisp but it's blurry because of the eclipse!

And this is the shadow of the leaves from a tree..funky!!!!

Well, it was fun but I did not notice any change in the wildlife as the eclipse happened. And I do understand now why people wanted to be where it would be 100%. Maybe the one in 2024 will be my chance to see it at 100% totality!

Thanks for reading!