Spring is Here

We had a very nice rainy Saturday! That might sound strange but here in Colorado, we welcome moisture very much! It was a great day to get caught up on cleaning, cooking and laundry too. Sundays are my favorite day to go out photographing but Hazel needed a good hike as we stayed in yesterday. So I decided to combine a hike with my dog and some photographing.......

We headed over to coot lake and hiked along the dams toward the south side of the boulder rez. As we were walking along, a bald eagle flew by headed in the same direction as us. 

I watched and hoped the eagle might land on one of the poles at the end of the first dam.

Bingo! I saw the eagle swoop down and land but was not sure where. So we picked up the pace to see if I could get some eagle pics.

I thought the eagle may have landed on one of the telephone poles but as I got closer I saw he/she was on a short post....perfect place to pose for pics!

This is still considered an immature baldie. It takes about 5 years for them to come to full maturity. I'm guessing this one is about 4 years old......

Always nice views of the flatirons from here. You can see that the top of the flatirons got a sprinkling of snow while lower down we got all rain.....

So we got to the end of the dams and decided to go look for killdeer around the beach area. 
It didn't take long for me to spot one.......

After enjoying the killdeer, I spotted this bird! Sweet! It's a greater yellowlegs and as a bonus I got some bird poop too......

The yellowlegs flew off and then I spotted some movement in the rocks. Yup, it's a 
say's phoebe...

It got quiet after seeing the phoebe, so we headed back over the dams towards coot lake.
Hazel got to go swimming and she saw some of dog buddies too.

Now that I live in Longmont, I decided to drive by the osprey nest at the Boulder county fairgrounds. On the way, I drove by another osprey nest on 75th and Nelson. so I had to stop and grab a pic.....

Here in Colorado, many platforms have been built for the osprey. One of my favorite raptors for sure!

I finally made it over to the nest at the fairgrounds and there they were! I realized that coming over either early morning or later in the day would be better for getting good pics. So just grabbed a quick pic and made a mental note to return soon.
This nest site has a camera mounted so you can watch from the comfort of your home...

http://www.bouldercounty.org/os/openspace/pages/ospreycamera.aspx

Thanks for reading!