Before the Storm- Again!

Yup! We are getting ready for another snow storm. Welcome to springtime in Colorado!
We're supposed to get around 6 inches of the white stuff. Since it was about 80' yesterday, the snow will melt super fast.
So it was a good excuse to go out photographing today. First, I stopped over to see Athena.
She was still high in the trees. Cher flew in and they had some mom/daughter time. Very sweet! It was still too dark to get any pics and I was ready to move on. So I wished them a good day and headed down to Prospect Park. I checked in on the owls here. Mom and the chicks were napping, so I continued on. So far I'm striking out with getting any photos, but it was beautiful morning. So all was well.

As I was walking along the stream, I heard a strange sound. I looked up and saw a female hooded merganser in a huge cottonwood tree!

I have never seen this before. Does she think she's a wood duck? So when I got home, I did a bit of research and hooded mergansers do nest in tree cavities or nesting boxes. Ha! I just learned something...love it! I will check back and see if they do nest in that tree.

I continued down the trail to Tabor lake. This is where the island is full of cormorants nests.
I was watching the cormorants when I heard a squawk behind me. I turned around to see a red tailed hawk glide by with breakfast in her talons. A ring billed gull was chasing and squawking at her. Crazy! I couldn't tell what she caught but it was some type of bird.

After the hawk flew off, I turned and saw a yellow headed blackbird. They are so beautiful but it's tough to get a super sharp photo....

I had spotted a black crown night heron across the lake. So after I enjoyed the blackbird, I looked and he was gone. Hmmmm I wonder where he had flown off to. No sooner did I 
think that and he appeared right next to me! I wanted to get the sun behind me to get a better shot but he flew off before I could do that......

I continued on to look for my wood duck friends but no luck. So I decided to head down to my favorite spot and see what was going on......

My avocet friends were in their usual spot. I'm so excited to see their babies this summer.

I continued on and saw the tree swallows were checking out their nesting box.

The yellow rumped warblers are all over, so had to grab this pic.

I was almost around the lake when I spotted the pied billed grebe. Cool! I have not seen one at this spot.....very cute!

I was almost done when I looked up and saw a pair of black crown night herons napping...

What a great morning! Thanks for reading!