Saturday, June 18, 2011

Visuals

There are days and weeks and months when I am not exactly too busy to write, but too busy to stop and think about what I've been doing and seeing, long enough to have anything to say about it.
But I have been taking photos. Of students and rocks and --of course-- birds.

On Monday I went paddling along the lakeshore with a friend - me in my spinning-in-the-wind river canoe, and she in a wooden sea kayak she built nearly 20 years ago (check out www.pygmyboats.com, my latest object of boat-lust). Suffice to say that I worked a whole lot harder than she did Monday AM.

Along the way, she pointed out an eagle's nest along the south shore, within the boyscout camp.  Even without binoculars, we could see 2 eagles, apparently juveniles, perched on the edge of the nest.
Tonight, Sue and I took friends out on the pontoon to look for the nest again.  Which we found, with no eagles.  Folks in another pontoon pointed them out in a tree along the shore -- two adults.  Later, we did see one of the "babies" on a branch near the nest.
So I took photos.  And then, we went up to the head of the lake to spy on the pelicans.  Still there.  More photos.

So for my first blog in ten weeks, here are photos of them, and also of a trip I took last month to Bear Lake, on the Utah/Idaho border, during some spring migration.  The osprey, red-throated loon, and hay field shots are from there.

Also in this set, my NEMESIS, the red squirrel that lives in the big ash in the back yard.  Last week, this squirrel pulled down the suet feeder and dragged it up to the front yard.  I don't have it back up yet -- of course I haven't seen the downies since.



This flock has been hanging out at the mouth of the Cannon River, on the west end of Lake Byllesby, since the big flocks passed through in March.  There are about 20 in this group.  I don't know if some are nesting in the area, but it seems likely. Check out the kingfisher on the tall snag.


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The rest of these are from Bear Lake, on 5/20/11




I think this must be a red-throated loon, given the loon shape and lack of a neck ring. They winter in Cabo, and breed in the Canadian arctic.  Just passing through.

1 comment:

  1. Good to see you back in the blog world. Very difficult to not want a beautiful wooden boat after looking at the Pygmy site!

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