Sand-hill Cranes for Earth Day

Calm waters & blue ski with high light clouds & snowy mountains all around.  Beautiful morning to canoe at the Reservoir.  It is about a 5 mile canoe around the edge & takes us about 1 hour, 15 minutes.  New birds & water-fowl:  gadwall,  cinnamon teal, some other ducks that we could not identify & a yellow-headed blackbird.  Three sand-hill cranes flew over and then we saw another sand-hill crane fly over our house in town riding the thermals.  Happy Earth Day 

Loons Laughing

We canoed again at the Reservoir but today we were the only ones on the water.  Nice & quiet & the same water-fowl & birds that were there on Sunday.  New ones since then are teal, two swans, a marsh hawk & a bald eagle.  The loons were very noisy this morning talking up a storm, along with the ever honking geese.  

Water Fowl on the Water

Canoed at the reservoir this morning for about 1 1/2 hours.  Very nice outside & only a slight breeze.  We saw buffelhead ducks, an american wigeon, lesser scaup, geese, blue herons sitting in their rookery on and above their nests, cormorant, a pelican, many black-necked stilts, many american avocets, sandpipers, loons, coots, mergansers and red-neck grebes.  The grebes were really calling & there were an extremely large number of the coots.  My favorite is the loon, they are really interesting to watch. One funny thing is that there are geese nesting in an old hawks nest & also in the rookery in a herons nest.  The first drop to the ground for the young will be a shocker!  No eagles, hawks or owls today.  Great day.

Meadow Larks Sing for Spring

This morning we walked out at the reservoir,  Nice day.  Geese and some ducks & also meadow larks singing to let us know Spring is here.  They are letting water into the reservoir so we are close to getting our canoe out.

Warm sunshine & green leaves on my mind

This is a brown time here in Montana with crocus breaking through the cold ground.  There is always sunshine thrown in daily with a few flakes of snow.  We walk everyday while waiting for the ice to break up so we can get the canoe out.  Our next adventure is down in a canyon in Utah for a back-packing trip.  More to come...