Harper Lake

Fairly quiet on Tuesday. I took a quick lunch trip to Harper Lake to get a walk in. It was a pleasant day for being outside, even if there wasn't anything too spectacular on the bird list. The sun did peak through just long enough for me to get a few nice shots of this American Kestrel.

I also got some distant pictures of this Double-Crested Cormorant, a first for me in Boulder County. Unfortunately its perch was way out in the middle of the lake, so there weren't any spectacular shots. In case you are wondering, the object covered in Cormorant, and avian whitewash is called a SolarBee. It is a solar powered water circulation system designed to improve water quality in reservoirs and lakes using environmentally friendly technology.

I checked their website today, I was trying to determine how they keep all the gulls and other birds off the solar panels. I know they are in most of the lakes and reservoirs here in the front range cities of Colorado, so it seems like the North Dakota company has been hard at work.

The answer to what keeps the birds off the wasn't real clear, there is some type of accessory that they sell, but no pictures or descriptions online. Streams of water or lines, whatever they are I guess they will keep showing up in my pictures.

Harper Lake Late Lunch

Poor Geese, they are out there for us day in and day out. I leave a trip to a lake thinking I saw nothing, and on any given day there are at least 20 of these dudes, (or dudettes), out there keeping it real for us. This guy or gal was content to sit trailside as I walked past, didn't even bother to honk or hiss, just chilin'. It deserved a picture on the blog, since the last Canada Goose I pictured was having a bit of trouble on the ice.

Chilly it was. The forecast says that there may be snow, but it should stay south and that we may see a dusting - usually the sure sign that we are going to get dumped on. I meanwhile am paying for my previous post about practicing photography on Gulls. Now more than ever the Ring-billeds seem to feel a need to make approaching passes at me. Not the slow hunting passes that are reliable either. These are the ones that come at you so fast that the auto-focus only sees sky as they come past at 15 feet. Oh, well. They are entertaining, and getting outside for an hour sure is nice.

The gull lifting away here had just pulled a great bit of larceny on the gull in the water, at first I thought I had a bit of inter-species rivalry going, but as usual it was just two Ring-billeds doing what they do best.

I saw some better behavior action when two Crows and a Ring-billed all joined forces to drive a Red-tail that had flown into the area across the lake. They made it very clear that the Red-tail was unwelcome.

This next gull wasn't doing much of anything, but the water he was sitting in picked up a great shade of blue from the partly cloud skies.

Finally, I found a more cooperative Black-billed Magpie than the well lit ones from Tuesday evening. Unfortunately his blue is not popping out like that evening, but he was willing to hang out at the ground feeder near someone's fence. Not sure what he was feeding on, but it must have been good.

Bird it Good!