My owl friends: A Visit to Barr Lake

I really needed to get out and photograph! Really! I took a look at the weather report and it said that Saturday was going to be a spectacular day...cool with a high of about 80'. Oh! That sounded so good, especially since Friday was 97'.
So Friday evening I packed up my camera equipment and got some food together. That way I could get up, make coffee, feed the kitties and be on my way.
Barr Lake is fairly close to DIA( Denver international airport) but even with planes flying over it's a fun place to see wildlife.

I had just got on the hiking path when I looked up to see a young white tail deer running towards me! Cool! I tried to get a good photograph but he/she was moving way too fast! So here's a blurry shot.....

Here are a few more shots of the youngster....

I continued on and saw this little bird...I'm not sure what bird this is. I'm guessing she's in the warbler family. Cute huh?

We have lots of sunflowers in Colorado....so beautiful!

Colorado has been very hot and dry this summer. So hot that the lake was quite low.
Here are a few pics to show that. All those sandy and green areas should be under water.

With the water being so low, it was possbile to walk out and see some of the shore birds.....this is a baird's sandpiper. There were about 30-40 of them running around.

After I had walked out to see the shore birds, I walked all the way back to the trail to see what else was going on. I was quite surprised to see some guys walking their dogs in the wildlife refuge area. There are signs all over saying no dogs in the refuge area but apparently these guys did not see them. I was debating what I should do. Do I report them to the ranger? Do I ignore them? Well, they hellped me out by letting their dogs off leash right next to a flock of geese. I quickly hiked over to the ranger station and reported them. She got them and escorted them back out of the refuge....

My good deed was done so I moved on....

Here is a bullock's oriole's nest. No one was around but down the trail I saw the female oriole. I was hoping to get a pic of some male orioles but they just flew by without even saying hi......

There was a family of eastern kingbirds I was able to observe. The young one still begged for food from mom. Once in awhile mom fed him but more often she ignored him and then he caught his own bugs. Was very fun to watch....