My owl friends: What a Great Week!

I cannot remember the last time I had such an amazing week! I scored a fabulous new

office for my massage practice, made a great contact with a local women's cycling group

( potential clients), went to see James Van Praagh with my good friend Pam, had a picnic dinner at Heil Ranch with my good friends Mary and Sherry, and the supreme court finally did the right thing! What a week!

So finally I had time go out photographing. Yahoo! I decided to stay local so I popped over to the open space offices on Cherryvale. I was hoping to see some wilson's snipe and the bobolinks but no one was around. So I headed over to Walden's pond. Somehow I managed to be the first one there....sweet! I spotted an osprey but it was too far away to get a shot. I could hear lots of song birds but couldn't see them as they were tucked into all the foliage.

Finally spotted this female downy woodpecker....

Then I heard the beautiful song of the bullock's oriole! I never get tired of seeing these handsome dudes!

Further down the trail I heard an interesting song. Turned out to be a western wood pewee..

Now grackles are a very common bird that I see all the time. So it's not often I photograph them. But I noticed this one had something in their mouth so I grabbed some pics. When I got home and downloaded the pics, I realized the grackle had a mouthful of grubs...yum! The kids will be enjoying a delicious breakfast!

Dragonflies of all kinds were zipping around. Finally one landed so I could get a pic....

And there were baby bunnies everywhere!

I finally made it over to the osprey nest and it wasn't easy. There are paths but with all the rain, the grasses were super tall and clogged up the paths......

The trails are closed that go close to the nest, so I just grabbed a quick shot of them. I waited a bit to see if one would fly by but no luck. And I couldn't wait too long as the mosquitoes were ferocious!

So I continued on the loop and started to head back towards Walden ponds. One of the osprey zipped by so I hustled back to the nest in hopes of a flight pic. No luck but now I could see that they have two youngsters in the nest.....

It was very quiet all the way back to the main parking lot. Then this cute yellow warbler showed up...

And this killdeer posed nicely....

It was only 8am, so I decided to stop at the 75th St trail. I was hoping to see some hummingbirds but no luck. Did see this guy.....

I realized I was close to my owl friends, so I decided to stop over there. I knew it was long shot to even see them as they could be anywhere! They've been out of the nest for about 2 months, so they are getting good at flying.
There are two ways to get to Twin lakes. I almost parked near the new brewery but then felt it was better to park where I usually do. Good thing I did! I hadn't even reached the nest area when I looked to the left and there was one of the owlets! After grabbing a few pics, I walked over to the other path to see if it was a better place for pics.

This one kept looking down and I soon saw why. There was a sibling!

I only saw two of them so not sure if the third owlet made it. I did not see mom and dad but I am sure they were around.

I finally pulled myself away and headed back to the car. Since I was near the lake, I took the path that drops down to the road. As I was walking, I heard what sounded like robins. I almost kept walking but decided to check it out. Ha! A pair of downy woodpeckers were busy feeding the kids! It seems there were two youngsters and they were almost as big as their parents....

Here's one of the youngsters waiting for food.....