I love Saturday mornings! Sometimes it's a good day to errands, clean the house,etc and sometimes it's a good day to go play. I decided it was a good day to go play. So I was out the door by 6:30am. The plan was to go over to Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge. I had not been there in awhile and was hoping to see some bald eagles and the bison might be hanging around. There's a herd of wild bison that live in the refuge. I've gotten some pics of them before and always enjoy seeing them.
So I drove through the bison area and no one was around. Bummer!
A cute female mule deer was having breakfast and posed for some pics!
A buck walked by but had no time to pose for a pic....
I drove over to Lake Mary and did a hike around the lake. I had seen a great horned owl here before but not today. In fact it was fairly quiet. There was a flock of tree sparrows that were kind enough to pose for me....
Next, I headed over to another trail. I did see some hooded mergansers and canvasbacks but they weren't close enough for a photo. This prairie dog was though......
I was walking back to the car and said hi to another photographer in the parking lot. We got to chatting and he mentioned the wood ducks at a small pond in Littleton. Hmmmmm... a facebook friend/photographer had posted some wood duck pics from Stearns lake the other day. So I knew the place he was talking about. I'd had enough fun at the Arsenal, so I jumped in the car and drove down to Littleton. I had never been to the lake before, so I took a few wrong turns before I located it. It's a very small lake in the middle of a cute little town park. At first I just saw the canda geese but then I heard the familiar call of the wood duck and then I quickly located them! There were at least 4-5 pairs of wood ducks! The light was not great as it was around 10 am but it was still fun and I will be back for sure.....
So I left Littleton and realized I could head home by driving right by my "favorite spot".
Saturday morning at 11 am is definitely not the ideal time to stop at Belmar Lake. It's very close to a neighborhood, so lots of people bring their kids to walk around the lake on the weekend. I'm all for kids enjoying Nature but screaming children is not good for wildlife photography. But since I was driving by, it was worth stopping.
I had barely walked a 100 yards before something zipped by me and landed in a nearby tree.
Ha! It was a kestrel with lunch in her talons! I couldn't tell what she caught but it looked like some type of big insect......Yum!
That was so cool! She had just finished her lunch and flew over to another tree. As I was going to follow her, a couple of gals walked by. It looked like one of the gals was mentally disabled and her caregiver was telling her about all the wildlife that lives around this lake. I heard the caregiver say " there are whooping cranes and red winged mockingbirds here" Hmmmmm......I don't think so! I'd love to see a whooping crane and there is no such thing as a red wing mockingbird :)
So I continued on and walked over to the back lake. This handsome lesser scaup was hanging around.....
There were a few pairs of mallard ducks and this very cute hooded merganser. He was doing his courting dance but there were no female mergansers around. Maybe he was just practicing........
There wasn't much else going on, so I headed back to the car. Just before the parking lot, I spotted a turtle enjoying the beautiful day!
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