My owl friends: Barr Lake Sunday

I had not been to Barr lake all winter so it was definitely time to go. The winter time is excellent for seeing bald eagles which is fun. The springtime is a great time to see burrowing owls, western grebes doing their courting dance, swainson's hawks and

all the song birds that come back for the summer.

So I was up bright and early and headed down to see who wanted their pics taken.

I looked for the burrowing owls on Piccadilly Rd but no luck. So I headed over to

Trussville and 114th to see if any burrowing owls were around...nope!

So I doubled back to see if the swainson's were nesting in their usual spot...yup!

I love seeing these hawks! They are very interesting in that they only eat rodents, etc

during breeding season and while they raise their young. Then they go back to eating insects which is why they need to migrate south each year......

After enjoying the hawks, I headed into Barr lake. The first thing I saw was this cute family of canada geese.....

The western kingbirds were quite abundant but most of them were high up in the trees. Luckily this one posed for me.....

Yellow headed blackbirds are so cool!

The main reason for coming to Barr lake today was to see the western grebes doing their courting dance. I got great pics last year and was hoping to get more today. So I headed down the trail to get to the gazebo. There's where they tend to hang out. It's about a 1.5 mile away so I hoped it was worth the hike.

Not much was going on until I got to the gazebo. This osprey flew by.......

And then this immature bald eagle flew by.....

Grebes???? There were only about 3-4 grebes and they were just hanging out. Crap! There are usually many more of them, so maybe they are arriving a bit later this year.....

This red winged blackbird posed nicely for me.....

And this young pelican flew by. You can tell it's young because it does not have the "breeding bump" on it's beak and still has some gray coloring on the top of the head.....

The rock wrens were all over the place but quite the challenge to get a pic of....

Here's a red wing claiming his territory.....

Had to get a pic of this cute guy.....

I like when it's partly cloudy as that's great light for photographing but today was weird. It kept getting more hazy. Not normal for around here.....

I went to check on the barn owl but no one was home. So I figured it was time to head out. I went looking for the burrowing owls again but they were still a no show. My swainson friend was on her nest which was fun to see.