My owl friends: A Beautiful Sunday

I got back from my trip to New York Tuesday afternoon. The kitties were happy to see me although they did have a good time with my friends Sherry and Mary while I was gone. I planned to go out Friday to do some photographing but it rained....again! So today was the day to finally get out. I was out of the house by 6:20am and was rewarded with a beautiful sun rise!

Many of my favorite spots to go photograph are closed due to the damage done by the floods. So I decided to head over to Barr Lake. Luckily this area was not damaged by the floods. I wanted to check in on my barn owl friends but they were doing some bird banding nearby. So I thought it might be fun to learn more about how they catch and band song birds.

Well, even though I see postings everyday encouraging people to stop by and see how they band the birds, that was not the case.....at least today. I said hi and asked a few questions but all I got were one word answers. Hmmmmm that was weird! Not very friendly so I moved on to see if any wildlife was around. It was fairly quiet.....did see this swainson's hawk enjoying the beautiful day.

I could feel not much was going on at Barr Lake, so I jumped in the car and headed to Lakewood and my " favorite spot". Right away I spotted some northern shovelers..yeah! These guys summer north of us and come down here for the winter. I always enjoy seeing them!

There were 2 great blue herons and I got one of them in flight.....

Here are more pics of the shovelers...... check out how large their bill is. Hence the name shoveler.

I also spotted 2 black crown night herons. One was an immature and this one looks like he is just about fully mature.

There were also some gadwall ducks around. I have seen them during them summer but they are more plentiful during the winter months.

When I was done at Belmar Lake, I headed up to Prospect Park. This park had been closed due to the floods but was now open......

There were chickadees and gold finches chowing down on the sunflower seeds......
here's a chickadee posing for me!