Squirrel Monday (I'm getting older, I'm a day slower :-).....

Sunday morning culprit, Monday morning posting.

 The culprit: This one seems to be a Star clone, so I'll just call him "Star" to make it simple.

 "She's watching....act natural and she will go away."

Plan A:   "Ooof.......this is hard!  It would help if she would fill this thing up so some would spill out."

"Ok....that didn't work.  Now what?"

"The coast is clear.....plan B ready."

"I can do this, I can do this......"

"Ta da!   Ouch, this thing hurts."

"Making my move"

"There's the prize!"

"She really needs to fill this thing.  I could starve to death!"

Hang ten

Squirrel bliss.

Hovey Lake visit....

Another good birding day!  We drove out to Hovey Lake which is west of Mt. Vernon, Indiana.  It was a beautiful day when we left home with spring-like temperatures and blue skies and sunshine.

 There are always hawks along the fence rows and power poles on the way to the lake.  This was my best shot.....a nice Red-tailed Hawk.  We counted at least 4 hawks on the way there.

Just as we got near the lake we could see this form out on one of the trees in the water and were pretty sure it was an immature eagle.  It has that eagle look to the head and was too big to be anything else.  We saw it again when we were leaving, but it was behind so many branches I didn't get any focused shots of it.

 Along the edge of the lake near where we parked for a look at the lake, Mike spotted this adult eagle up in a tree eating something.

I sneaked out of the car to get his photo, but of course it wasn't his most photogenic side :-)  He flew off so we began wondering where its nest is.  We had seen eagles at the lake before.

Can you see it?????  Way out there the dark spot near the top of one of the trees.  A really big nest and easy to see even with the human eye at that distance.

.......zooming in more.....

....and more plus some cropping.  We think there is an eagle sitting on it. If you zoom in, it is there against the back of the nest with the head facing the left.

This is where we park the car and get out and walk.  On the right is a swampy slough area and on the left is Hovey Lake which is really big.  Not a water bird in sight anywhere.  We did see a few gulls flying around and when we left we thought we saw 3-4 Cormorants.

This is the place where I can always find a Red-headed Woodpecker or two!  This one was sitting at the top of one of the dead trees in the swamp and he took off while I was shooting him.

 Fortunately, he went to the other side of the path where the light was more in my favor.  Checking out this hole.  Could it be his home?  He stuck one foot in and his head and then headed on up the tree.

 Near the top looking around.

 On the way up.....looking for bugs?

 Eyeing the summit.

 He flew to this limb almost over my head, which isn't a very good angle for shooting!

 On the trunk among the branches.

 King of the swamp!

OK....I don't see these often, so I overdo my photos :-)

 A nice male Red-winged Blackbird was buzzing at us.

 He has the Mrs. with him here.  Will be nesting along there soon, imagine.

A sparrow....Tree sparrow maybe?  I don't try very hard to guess when the photos are this distant.

 Flicker

A flooded field with a lot of Mallards, but they flew when I tried to get closer.

All in all a nice day.  It got gloomy as the day progressed and my sunshine went away.  Today we are back to cold temperatures more common for February.
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I posted some dune fence photos on my other blog: This, That and The Other Thing.  I was tired of posting Florida in this blog!  

Checking the migrants in Henderson, KY......

We drove over to Henderson, KY last week to check on the migrating geese and ducks.  I figured the Snow Geese were probably on their way back home, but you never know until you go look!  We also wanted to check on the eagle's nests in the heron rookery just over the river to see if there was any sign of activity.

 First stop: the heron rookery.  All those empty nests will be filling up in another month of so (this is only a fraction of them).  It is so exciting when the herons come and live there and raise their young.  The old eagle's nest in the top photo (the big nest in the center) had an adult eagle sitting on it when we drove up but it flew away before I could even lift the camera.  At least we know they are thinking about using that nest!  It is the closer of the two nests and right in the middle of all the heron nests.

The newer eagle's nest is further back and easy to see, but we didn't see any eagle's there that day.

On over to the Henderson river bottoms area and the Slough preserve area.  We arrived at this first small flooded field to find that the White-front Geese were still around in fairly large numbers!

 I was so busy looking at all the geese and checking for Snow Geese......there were at least 3 still in the mixture....that I didn't pay enough attention to the ducks until I got home on the computer.  The Mallards and Shovelers are always obvious, but it turns out there were some others in the mix.

 Mostly Mallards in this shot....

 There are three Northern Pintail ducks swimming through the middle right of this photo.

 It think that one in the front is a female American Wigeon.  I have other shots with the Wigeons.  Snow Goose on the bank.

 Pintail right in front.

American Wigeon, Gadwall, and Shovelers in this one.  There were more ducks by themselves on the other side of the road in another flooded field, but the light was poor in that direction and my shots weren't very good.  Mostly Shovelers and Mallards on that side.

 We stopped near the river to watch a barge going by.

 This barn is slowing falling down.  I have a photo from when we first went over to this area and it looks much better a few years ago!  Someone has bought some of the farm land in the area and is tearing out lots of trees and clearing the area.  My favorite barn to find Swallows has been torn down.  I was sad to see that.

 There were huge clouds of blackbirds in the trees and fields.  Mostly Grackles in the closest shot I have, but there is one flash of red-wing in this photo, so I imagine there were Red-wing Blackbirds and Starlings  mixed in.

This hawk was flying with the blackbirds.  Easy pickings if he was looking for lunch!  We saw an immature eagle flying in a thermal with a couple of hawks, but they were too far away for a photo.  It was a good birding day!  Spring is on the way and the birds are moving about a lot.

I almost forgot this one little sparrow sitting on a pile of trees that had been uprooted and cleared from a field.  I think it is a Tree Sparrow, but not positive.

Florida hodge-podge......

I'm trying to finish off my Florida photos, so I am just jumbling some of them together here in one post.

We saw this hawk sitting on a power line over a busy road and we stopped in the parking lot to take photos.  He didn't even seem to mind that we were watching him.  Don't know what kind, but I would say a juvenile something....Sharp-shinned maybe?

He swooped down and grabbed something off the ground.  We think it is a frog.

Maybe he is a biology student doing his frog dissection for class :-) .....or maybe he is just hungry.

 At a park we went to we saw a group of  Hooded Mergansers swimming along.  Up on the dock there was a fake plaster owl.  We wondered what they were trying to scare away with it.  Curious.

I don't see a lot of Mergansers, so I was happy to see these.

 Twice we saw Herons on top of buildings.  I'm not sure if I would like to have a heron sitting on top of my house or not :-)  This one is on a garage.

On top of a club house for a miniature golf course near the heron rookery.

 These Coots were in a pond in front of a buy shopping area.  Besides the Coots, there were a Grebe, Gulls, and Cormorants in the same pond.  I really can't get over how much the birds ignore people here.

 They look like they are talking to each other :-)

 This Cormorant was "sailing".......he had his wings up and was just letting the wind move him around.  Funny to watch, but very graceful.

These two look like a married couple having an argument about something.....or else he's a flasher.

 The gulls were all common Ring-bills......

 .....but I enjoyed watching them land......

 ....and gather.....

.....and bathe.

Back at our motel, this Collared Dove was trying to make a nest up in the rafters of the porch roof.