Out of the Garden 1-11-09

This morning as we were heading toward our birding destination I could tell that we were going to have a good day of birding because as you can see there was a break in the clouds and the sun was shining. The Sun was playing peek a boo through the clouds all day.My Dearly Beloved took all of the following photos. I want to thank him for sharing these with us.

Driving through Saunders Woods on our way to the power plant area we were delighted to see a Barred Owl sitting not too far off the road. He gave us the evil eye before he took off for a quiet place to rest for the day.
Standing sentinel as we entered the power plant area was a dapper Great Blue Heron. He is beginning to sport his breeding plummage as you can see the feathers out the back of his head and the feathers on his chest blowing in the wind that kept it cold today despite the sun.

We came upon this American Kesteral with his breakfast. He must have been hungry to allow us to get close enough to take his picture. Normally they fly when you get very close at all.He went on with his meal as we didn't want to disturb him.

Another great look was give to us by a male Common Goldeneye. They are such beautiful ducks. We usually don't get this close to them either. He was another hungy soul. Now you see him... bloop, now you don't. They are diving ducks and he went under all the way. DB caught him mid dive. Toward the end of our birding day we drove by the Bald Eagles nest. We knew there was something there because another car was stopped in the road near by. Sure enough there was a pair of adult Bald Eagles sitting side by side near the nest. This is a sight you usually only see during mating season. They pair up and remodel the nest together while bonding.

This was such a great way to end the day, the weekend. I hope you all had a great weekend and are well rested.

Out of the Garden

While Thanksgiving day was opened by a big blazing sun we weren't so lucky with the weather today.
Today we almost decided to stay at home due to the foggy conditions. We also had some rain this morning to add to the miserable conditions.

While we didn't think we were going to be lucky enough to see much of anything at our usual birding area things did start to reveal themselves to us. There were the usual Great Blue Herons. We usually can't get too close to them but with the fog almost acting as a blind we did get fairly close to some of them. I thought this made an interesting shot. Even the huge rafts of Mallards let us get close to them. Of course as soon as they realized we were so near they all took off.
One of the most interesting sights we saw today was, no not thise lovely little coot but one of its own being devoured by an adult Bald Eagle. Unfortunately when we got close enough to see what was happening we were unable to get a picture because the Eagle took off with its breakfast dangling from its talons.
All that was left behind were the feathers that the Eagle had been plucking. As we went around the SW end of the area we bird to an area we don't hit every week we were thrilled to find 8, no not 8 tiny reindeer, 8 huge Whooping Cranes flying through the air.I mean this is almost unheard of anyplace since these birds are still an endangered species. This area is right along the Wabash River which we suppose that the Whooping Cranes were following south.

We ran into a hunter that told us they had been in this area for 2 weeks. Some of them have radio transmitters on them and they are being monitered by every agency that has a concern for them.

There are two immatures in this group. If you enlarge one of the pictures you can see the cinnamon coloring on the juveniles. It takes a whole year for the juveniles to molt into adult plummage.

There they go into the fog. Just a magical moment seeing these birds come out of the fog into view.

I am so thankful that my DB took these wonderful pictures. I was way too excited to even think about it. I hope you all are having a good day too despite any foul weather.