Jackpot Sunday

What a fantastic day I had! Here's what happened......

The weather report was for a cloudy day with a chance of rain in the afternoon. Cloudy days are not always ideal for photography but it was worth a try. So I was out the door at 6am with coffee in hand and headed down to my favorite spot.

I immediately headed over to see the avocets! I love those blue legs!

Here's one of the great blue heron's nest with three youngsters.....

The swallows are all over the place! Here is a tree swallow posing so nicely......

I continued down the path and came upon this cutie.....

As I've said before, I love the gadwall colors and patterns. This is a handsome dude!

Spotted sandpipers are also in abundance and very cute too!

As I was heading for the back pond, this snowy egret flew by so I doubled back to get some pics. He/she was having some good luck at catching breakfast....

And check out the reddish area near the eyes. That means this snowy is in full breeding mode. I've never seen them nest at this lake but that would be so cool!

I continued on and saw this female red winged blackbird. The colors are beautiful!

I continued on to look for my swainson's hawk friends. I'd seen them flying around the last couple of times but wondered where they would nest. Their nest from last year got destroyed over the winter so they had lots of work to do. 
I walked over to the location of their old nest area and looked around for a bit. I was just about to give up when I spotted the male in a tree close to the old nest tree. Yahoo!

After enjoying the swainson's I went to check out the back pond and there was a redhead duck! I hardly ever see these guys, so I was very excited!

While I was enjoying the handsome redhead dude, all kinds of swallows were flying around. Then they'd take a break on a branch right near me......

This is a northern rough winged swallow

Here's a barn swallow

And my personal favorite- the violet-green swallow

And the tree swallow was also around. How cool to have 4 kinds of swallows in one place! 

I finally pulled myself away from the duck and swallows and saw the robin with a mouthful of nesting material. Unlike the GBH who brings one stick at a time, this seems much more efficient!

I completed the lap and took a look for the cooper's hawks with no luck. So I started on my second lap. I was hoping to see a wood duck and there he was! So spectacular!

Finally pulled myself away from the wood duck and spotted this guy. It's a gadwall and looks like a young male....

Sweet! My first ducklings pic of the season!  Momma gadwall and her crew!

As I was enjoying the ducklings, I spotted a pair of blue winged teals!

Here you can see the the blue on his wing.....

I love those patterns on the female.....

I was headed for the back pond to see if the redhead duck was still there when I saw Neal. He lives nearby and knows his birds! He's the gentleman that told me about the cooper's hawks and where their nest was. So today I brought him two photos of the cooper's hawks as a gift. He loved them!

So we headed over to the back pond to see the redhead duck and we also got to see a wood duck!

The handsome dude was still there for Neal to enjoy.

 Then we walked over to see the swainson's and they did not disappoint. Here's the female with some nesting material....

And here is the male....

After enjoying the swainson's, Neal continued his hike and I went back to see the redhead dude.

After his preening session, it was nap time......

A snowy egret was fishing in the same pond where the redhead was and with some patience, I got a flight pic!

I was just about done with my second lap when I spotted this handsome couple of tree swallows.....

I wasn't quite ready to head home so I continued on. I saw two geese families. Here the gosling is fairly small......

And these goslings are much bigger.......

Next up was a mallard duck family......

 And finally I checked on the GBH nest. I had thought there were three youngsters but there is four! Mom was checking in on them and then she flew off for more food for the kids!

Wow! Wow! Wow! What a fun morning! But it wasn't over yet. I still needed to get Hazel out for some playtime and wanted to see the owlets. It needed to happen before the rain started  
so I decided to combine the two. I drove home, got Hazel and took her over to Twin lakes. We met up with Georgia and her dog Amber. We found the owlets but the dogs were in need of some play time, so we walked over to the west lake where they could run and play.


These are a few pics I grabbed before we took the doggies over for a run....

After the dogs had lots of playtime, we headed back to find the owlets. We saw momma Cher but no owlets. Then I looked right above us and there they were!

There are their cute butts! I couldn't get them to both look at me, so we called a day and went home. It was perfect timing as it started to thunder and then rain as Hazel and I headed home!

Thanks for reading!