April showers bring.....April flowers and high water and spring birds.....

Spring is here and everything is getting beautiful.....between the rain storms.

 I may my annual spring trip to Mouteau Park where I know I can always find Meadowlarks.

I love to see them stand there, nice and tall for me to photograph.  Such a stunning bird!

 Then Mike and I went over to Henderson to the bottomlands to see if there were any snipe in the flooded fields.  Unfortunately, I didn't find any snipe this year.  I was disappointed.  Maybe I was too late and they have moved on.  The water was quite high.  The Ohio River was out of its banks on the Evansville side of the river for at least a mile.  We thought we might find the road on the other side flooded too, but it was open where we went for most of the way.   These Coots and Blue-wing Teal were in a flooded field.

 Lots of Coots.

This was as far as we got.  The water was over the road here.  The River is just to the right the other side of those trees. 

 There were a couple pair of Scaups? in this area.  We saw more ducks....Shovelers mostly.... in a larger flooded area, but they were too far away for good photos.

 We saw three deer.  This one stood still for a few minutes.

Mike spotted an eagle's nest about a half mile off the road.  We found a gravel road that took us a bit closer.  This photo isn't great.  One adult on the nest.  The distance was still very great at this point.  Later we saw the other Eagle sitting in a tree behind the nest.  I'm assuming they have eggs or eaglets in the nest. 

Oops....looks like we are at the end of the road here.  The water was rushing pretty fast.  Couldn't tell how deep it was.  Will have to come back in a week or two after things dry out and the water level goes down.

A turtle in a flooded corn field. 

 At home my yard is covered in violets.  I just love them.

 The neighbor's pink crab apple.

 Standing on our road looking over the lilac bushes and toward the dome and the cherry tree.  These bushes are a lot taller than I am!

 The lilacs....not quite at their full best.

 The ornamental cherry is just beginning to burst into bloom.

One of the many squirrels in the neighborhood.