My owl friends: Duck in the tree?

Yes, I know this blog is about my owl friends. Things are a bit slow over there, so thought I'd share what I saw today.
I headed down to Prospect Park in Wheatridge( 1/2 hour from my house). That's where my favorite Mandarin duck lives. It is a beautiful oasis just outside of Denver. I was walking the trails and a great blue heron flew by. I aimed the camera and took a few shots. I checked the LCD screen expecting to see a blur but instead I saw a very crisp shot! Wow! I was excited to get such a great shot as flying birds are challenging to capture in a photo. Then it dawned on me...my owl friends had helped with that shot. I realized besides all the spiritual education I got from the owls, I also had received a ton of practice attempting to get a pic of them flying. So I thanked the owls and continued down the trail. Today was my lucky day as I found the male wood duck. They are so beautiful!
I continued down the trail and heard a duck quacking. Sure there a couple of large lakes and a stream where the ducks hang out. But this was in the woods. I looked up and there was female mallard sitting in a tree.....crazy! I have never seen that in my life.
I have learned that the animals do not read the books that explain their behavior. So I asked the duck.....she said it was easy to see far away from her perch and she'd been another type of bird in a past life that did sit on branches. So she was very comfortable......how cool was that!
As I was walking down another trail, I looked up to see a horse head in this tree branch...cool!

And finally I saw a pair of hooded mergansers.....pretty spectacular,huh?

Late this afternoon, I checked in with a new family of great horned owls. They have very young babies. and I finally I stopped by to see Penelope and Horton. I was hoping they'd be sitting together....but nope. They were about 40 feet away from each other and looking good. They both said hi to me and looked cute for the camera.