Winter Solstice

  The winter solstice is always a special day but today was even more special. 12/21/12 the end of Mayan calendar,etc,etc,ectc. I was not too concerned that the world was ending,but if it was gonna end, spending the day photographing seemed the best option.
   So many choices as to where to go photographing.......I finally decided to go back to Barr lake to see if the eagles were around. There was an immature baldie sitting on by the enterance to the park and I saw a few flying in the park but they were too far to get any pics of. It was a beautiful day so I continued to explore to see who was around.
    I saw a large white bird out on the ice. Hmmmm what the heck could that be? I got close enough to see it was a pelican. Most of them have gone south for the winter but not this guy!

   As I continued exploring I looked up to see a red tail hawk looking for breakfast. Sure there are plenty of red tails in Colorado but I never get tired of enjoying their beauty!

  Still searching for baldies, I heard some chirping in the bushes. There were about 5 lesser goldfinches having their breakfast.

  We have plenty of canada geese in the winter time. There must have been 500 of them as they took flight. They literally filled the sky!

    As they took flight I spotted a few snow geese mixed in......

    Well, even though I didn't any shots of the baldies, I still had fun at Barr Lake. I decided to go see if mandarin duck was around. I normally would get on highway 76 to get over to Prospect park. But today I decided to take the back roads. How lucky I did that! There was an old abandoned building surrounded by some cottonwood trees. I quickly spotted a couple of bald eagles perched in the tree.
I pulled a quick u turn and quickly parked the car. The light was not very kind for getting good pics but I had to give it a go.

      Mom and dad put on quite the show. Then I spotted their young baldie in a nearby tree. I will never ever get tired of seeing bald eagles!

  Finally I pulled myself away to go see mandarin duck. He was hanging out in his usual place with his mallard friends.

 I enjoyed this sweet guy for awhile, then continued on to see who else was around. It was fairly quiet. There were some hooded mergansers and this female lesser scaup hanging out.

   Otherwise it was pretty quiet. As I got back near the parking lot, a few robins greeted me. Since I grew up in NY state, I am not used to seeing and hearing robins in the winter time. But out here, it's a bit different. Our robins head south for the winter and then the canadian robins come in for the winter. It is fun to see them all winter.........

  Thanks for reading!