Another Amazing Day

  While I would have liked to gone photographing out at Barr Lake, I had to go back to my favorite place. Those cooper's hawks and the avocet chick are growing so fast! So I did not want to miss anything.

I was up by 4:45am and took Hazel out to do her business. The smell of smoke was thick in the air. A fire erupted Saturday afternoon in Nederland. It's a small and beautiful town about 15 miles west of Boulder. Colorado is a beautiful place to live but one of the dangers is wildfires. Hopefully no one will lose their home...

I arrived at my favorite place just as the sprinklers were going on near the cooper's hawk nest area. So I decided to do a loop and then check on them.

I headed towards the gazebo and heard the familiar call of the kingfisher. I love seeing these guys!

I hustled over to check on the avocets. Found dad and the chick quite easily. There was still no sign of mom avocet or the other chick....oh well.

This is the chick! He/she is almost as big as dad!

 I have many pics of the avocets but this maybe my favorite! The closed eye and the feather detail just blew my mind! Did I mention lately how much I love my new lens?

I spotted a bunch of tiny ducklings with mom. Probably hatched in the last couple of days. So damn cute!

Young swallows were perched all over the place hoping for some breakfast from mom or dad. This is a barn swallow......

I continued on and heard the very familiar call of a wood duck. She and the kids were hanging in their favorite spot along the north side. What was interesting is that there were two adult females. At first I thought it was the female from the other family but I spotted her a few minutes later. So maybe this is a youngster from last year and she stopped by to say hi.......

Just like last week, there was an immature black crown night heron and an adult.

And here's the other wood duck family with her three ducklings.....

I headed to the back pond to see if the swainson's hawks were around. They were not but I noticed the pond was very low. Not sure why the water dept did that but it did create a buffet of delicious food for the birds.

There were four snowy egrets having an easy time catching fish.

Then I noticed the crackles were chowing down too. I have no idea what they were eating but they were happy campers!

I finally pulled myself away and spotted this young robin chowing down on berries from this bush. 

I love flowers!

I finished my loop and hustled over to see the cooper's hawks! I quickly spotted one in the dead tree.

..

There was no one near the nest, so I wondered where the other kids were. It took a minute or so before I spotted them in another tree nearby. I did get to see all five of them.....that's a lot of mouths to feed.

 

This one looked a bit damp. I wonder if the sprinklers got him....

Finally I pulled myself away and started another loop. Said hi to this killdeer.....

And this spotted sandpiper....

A very cute family of gadwall ducks......

Those turtles like to sleep in! Finally spotted them on my second time around.....

A very cute barn swallow.......

I headed back to the back pond and was treated to quite the show. One of the snowy egrets was a bit of a bully and would chase the others away if they got too close.

He would get this funky hairdo when he got annoyed....

Then one of the snowys scored a huge crayfish! It looked like a lobster it was so big! It took a few minutes for the snowy to figure out how to swallow it!

I decided to double back to see the wood ducks and the herons. A wood duck duckling flapping their wings just like mom!

The night heron looked like she was ready to fly.......

After scratching an itch......

She took off.......

I finally spotted one of the male wood ducks. He was a bit far for a good pic.....

The dragonflies were all over the place. Finally I got a few pics......

Whew! It was getting hot and it was only 9am. So I stopped by to see the cooper's hawks one more time before I headed home......

Well, that was quite fun! I did wonder if it would be a quiet day because of the heat. But it was another amazing day out in Nature!

Thanks for reading!