Spring Fever

Yup! I have spring fever! For sure I am ready for some lovely warm weather but more importantly I am ready for our summer inhabitants to return. Snowy egrets, avocets, wood ducks, baby geese and baby mallards plus all the song birds. I know it will be a few weeks or longer but I am ready now!

I have been thinking about my new eagle friends all week. So I decided to start my day by checking in with the eagles. They were just relaxing and enjoying the beautiful day. It was a chilly 23' and they seemed to be just chillin, so I decided to head up to my favorite spot and then check back with the eagles later.

My favorite spot is only about a 10 minute drive from the eagles, so it was easy to get over there and see what was going on. The shovelers were putting on quite the show!

I continued around the lake and met up with one of my fellow photographers. As we were chatting, this townsend's solitaire showed up and posed for us! They will move up into the mountains for the summer but for now they enjoy the lower altitude as there is food to eat.

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This handsome goldeneye was showing off for the girls!

I continued around the lake and spotted the northern pintail I had seen last week. He was hanging out with a pair of mallards and a gadwall.

The great blue heron is still hanging around the nest. There was no sign of another GBH.....

Here is another goldeneye with his gal!

This is a male gadwall. I just love their colors and textures.

Another favorite is the green winged teal. so handsome!

Kingfishers live around here. Always a challenge to get a pic as they are soooo fast!

Once I was done, I drove back to the eagles. I hung around for a bit but all was quiet. So I headed home. It does make me realize how lucky I was last week to see them flying, mating etc.
As many of you know I have a new dog, Hazel. So since I was out all morning photographing, it was her turn! I grabbed some lunch and we headed over to the north side of the boulder reservoir. It was now 65' and pretty warm, so I thought it might be fun to teach Hazel to swim. Since she will do anything for a tennis ball, I knew that way the way to go. It did take some time and we lost one tennis ball but finally she got it! It was so darn cute! She was pretty damn proud of herself as she swam out, grabbed the ball and brought it back to me. We spent 2 hours out there. Finally I said it was time to go.....She is now snoozing away!
I promise to get some pics next time!

thanks for reading!