Serene Scenery Sunday

Hello, everyone!  We hope all of you are having a wonderful Sunday!  Mom was finally able to get out and do some birding this weekend and we have lots of birdie photos to show you!  Grab a bowl of water and some snacks ... and come birding with us!  (That's RIGHT!  We got to go on today's outing!)

Anyway, Mom and our friend Beth went out to Tuttle Creek State Park yesterday - a gloomy-looking day.  They made the most of it and Mom took some sort of "ambient" type of shots like this:

Hooded Merganser

Great Blue Heron
...or at least a pretty good one

That one never gets old!  Anyway, bad lighting and they were all the way across the river.  Mom decided to go for closer, more cooperative birds.

Northern Cardinal

White Breasted Nuthatch

Mom and Beth moved on to one of the beaver ponds where some ducks (and lots of geese) are known to hang out.  Mom saw one of her favorites - the tiny Green Winged Teal!

Green Winged Teals - and a Mallard

You can tell how small they are by comparing them to the Mallard in the background!  Speaking of Mallards, Mom likes how this shot came out:

Mallard - ready to swim right through the goal posts!

Mom said the light kept changing and she was having a hard time adjusting her camera fast enough.  She was fast enough to see who had been hiding along the shore of the pond, though!  Check it out!

Another Great Blue Heron!

After the heron flew by and the ducks swam away or flew off, Mom went back to shooting small birdies.

Blue Jay

They moved over to the river bank, and Mom saw this tiny woodpecker dancing around in a tree:

Downey Woodpecker

Mom and Beth stood by the river, bemoaning the light and the lack of anything "exciting" -- i.e., close, cooperative birds --- preferably eagles.  They were watching this gull eat a fishie ...

Ring Billed Gull with fishie

... when he was photo-bombed by a female Common Merganser.

"Oops.  Sorry!  Coming through!"

Mom started laughing, looked away, then looked up and saw this!!!

BALD EAGLE!

That's right - a Bald Eagle, doing a fly-by!  If they hadn't stood there watching the gull, they would have missed her!  They watched her fly, then land over on the other side of the river.  Beth thought they could drive over MUCH closer without disturbing her, so they ran to their vehicles and drove over to where she had perched.  Much to their delight, she was not only still there, but she didn't mind posing for a while!  Here are some of the 87 million shots Mom took of her:

Bald Eagle

She doesn't have adult plumage yet, so she's probably 2-3 years old

Mom got closer and closer, taking shot after shot.  Before she knew it, the Eagle had spotted something interesting down river and took off.

Ooh.  Gotta be quick, Mom!
And not quite so zoomed in!

Anyway, she's still processing her photos, but you can see more at this link, if you're interested.  She'll be adding more within the next few days.

We did think you'd like to see at least one of the photos from today, when we went out to Milford Lake!  We'll close with this one:

Adult Bald Eagle

Isn't he handsome?!? Oh, how we love seeing the Bald Eagles!

We hope you feel nice and serene now!

Cammie!