My owl friends: Happy New Year!

New Year's Day is always a fun and special day for me. When Mollydog came into my
life, we always did a fun hike in the Boulder area each New Year's Day. The last few years it evolved into a combination of a hike and a photo shoot. So today the Mollydog was with
me in Spirit as I went out to photograph.
I decided to see if the cardinal was around. While they are very common east of the
Mississippi, they are a bit rare in Colorado. One has been hanging around a hiking trail in Boulder. I see postings all the time about people seeing him, so thought today might be my lucky day. On the way over a red tailed hawk was sitting in a tree near the road. I didn't even need to get out of the car to get this pic.

I got over to the trail and was feeling hopeful I'd see the cardinal. A five minute hike got me to the location where he has been seen. A woman with binoculars was standing there. She was also looking for the cardinal. There was no sign of the bird, so we chatted for a few minutes hoping he would show up. But no such luck. And it was only 14 degrees, so I decided to move on and try again another day.

I headed over to Walden ponds in east Boulder but it felt really quiet, so I decided to drive down to my favorite spot. It's a 45 minutes drive but I hoped it would be worth it.
This is where I saw the wood duck on Friday. I had done a quick trip down on Saturday to see if the wood duck was still around but did not find him. So hopefully he would be there today.
I hustled over to the back pond hoping Mr. wood duck would be there. All the usual suspects were there such as the great blue heron, mallards and goldeneyes but no wood duck....
Damn! Today was not turning out the way I had hoped. Oh well, I always enjoy watching the GBH. Just as I raised my camera to take a pic, he decided to fly across the pond. Sweet! Finally some decent pics.

The pair of canvasbacks is still hanging around, so I took a few pics of them.....

A small flock of geese was also on the pond. When they decided to leave, I was in a good spot for a flight shot.

While circling the pond I met a woman who was bird watching. We chatted for a bit and I shared that a wood duck had been seen around here a few days ago. Little did I know that this brief conversation would change my day from quiet to exciting!

I decided to head home with a quick stop to wish mandarin duck a happy new year. I was a bit disappointed with the photos I got so hoped seeing mandarin duck would cheer me up.
He was hanging in his usual spot with the mallards looking as handsome as ever.....

I was busy enjoying the mandarin when I spotted this little guy. He's smaller than a robin and I still have no idea who he is.....but he sure is cute!

A bit further down the stream was this handsome green winged teal...I love seeing these guys!

So seeing the mandarin did cheer me up, so I decided to walk out to the other lakes to see if there was still open water that would attract water birds. I was part way around the first lake when I ran into the woman that I met earlier at my favorite spot. We said hello and then she shared she had seen a pair of wood ducks at the stream. What? How lucky was I. If I had not said hello earlier and chatted a bit, I would never have known about the wood duck pair!
So I hustled over there and there they were!

I also asked the woman if it was unusual to see wood ducks in the winter and she

said yes! Very cool!

Besides the wood ducks there was this very cute duck. Not sure who he is but may be a mallard hybrid. Sometimes mallards will mate with other types of ducks and you get hybrids.