Mouteau Park dragonflies.....

Mouteau Park always has some interesting dragonflies around its lake.This is a Slaty Skimmer, but I only included it for the long shadow that the tail is casting making it look very long at first glance!
Trying a macro of the Widow Skimmer.

This is one that I only seem to see at this park. It is a Halloween Pennant and there were a bunch of them.

Same dragonfly......looks really orange in the sunlight.

This pair stay connected while laying eggs on the water. He seems to be more orange to her golden color.

Sometimes when I am shooting the dragonflies and the shadows all seem to get mixed up and I don't know what I have until I get home. What on earth did we do before digital cameras??

Video of the egg laying. It was hard to keep up with them.

The King(bird) and I.....

Ever have one of those days when you feel like throwing the camera in the wastebasket...only it isn't the camera's fault??? Take a whole series of what you think are wonderful photos.....only to find out that your favorite ones all look like this..... ......out of focus????? Sigh. I was so mad when I realized that my camera had focused on the clover and not the birds.....(notice I blame the camera rather than my poor skill).

I did get a few good shots even if my favorites were all out of focus.
This family of Kingbirds were sitting on these low wire barriers and the parents were catching bugs to feed the young ones.

This one landed about 5 feet from me, so I managed to not screw up this photo!

A very handsome bird that I don't often see, so I was very excited.

Begging.

" Feed me!"

" Hurry back with some more!"

That was about all the good shots that I got out of about 50 photos. I was so mad at myself when I saw them on the computer, that I actually got in the car and went back to see if the birds were still there several hours later! They were, but had moved to the soccer goals further out in the field.

At least there is no clover to confuse the focusing.....just a lot of net instead...groan.

I had to try to sneak out into the open field nearby without scaring them off.

I got a few more feeding shots, but none as good as the ones that I thought I had earlier. (Of course not...by this time I was too mad at myself to be totally happy :-)

I thought they looked cute like this....easier to feed in this position.

That babe opens its mouth so wide you can see the tip of it over the parent's head!

In the end I was satisfied, but it sure frustrates me when I can't focus right!!
I have a bunch more photos from this park that I will save for the next couple of days.

Flying and flapping and honking.....

The birds were pretty cooperative at the wetlands on Monday. I got lucky on this one and it was in focus more or less just as he went by me.
Mike caught the landing with his camera.
I got the last shot as he was lowering his wings.
Standing in all those weeds he really stood out against the green.

He immediately became very intent on something in the water, but I never saw him make a strike before I gave up and moved on.

I love this goose posture! It was interesting to see under the wings. This reminds me of an airplane that I've seen....something fat-bodied and lands on water....don't know the name.

A group on the far side decided to take off and I caught part of it......

....and thought maybe I was going to get to actually catch a goose! I couldn't believe it was still in focus when he got this close to me!

Another group of mixed geese and ducks arrived on the far bank and swam over to see if we had any food. There were a couple of new additions...that black duck and the Mallard female. They seem to have linked up with the 2 light brown manky Mallards we have been seeing and these geese. The older 4 manky ducks stay in a separate group. Would love to know about the relationship of all these ducks.

These 2 started a honking match....or more acurately a hissing match....very little sound.

They got pretty close......

...but then settled for a glaring match instead.

Definitely two eagles in the nest....

(My scheduled posts are still not posting on their own)

You are probably getting tired of eagle up-dates, but we check once a week in hopes of seeing them begin to fly. Today was the first time I could definitely say there were 2 in the nest and neither was an adult with a white head. One sitting on the edge, one laying down
Both up

Stretching the wings some....I hope that means flight is soon.

Both heads sticking up here.

Beak open

These 2 herons are right above the eagles and were flapping their wings. At least the heron are getting ready to fly.

I'm always amazed at how crowded the heron nests are.

Sort of like raising teenagers in a one bedroom apartment.

A couple dragonflies just for variety. These were actually at the wetlands where we went next, but I'll save those photos for tomorrow.

We are going over to Olney, IL. on Wednesday for a day trip to look for white squirrels. It's been pretty boring around here....I take photos of the same things over and over.
It rained over the 4th and the Wimbledon final match on Sunday was over 4 hours long....longest final in the history of Wimbledon....so that occupied a large chunk of my time watching it. That is why no posting the last couple of days.

Left-overs from the week.....

A little of this, a little of that...... Young Grackle?
Young Cardinal

I thought these were interesting.

This heron stook there like a statue instead of flying off like most of them. Standing tall
....and from the other side :-)

A very angry Redwing Blackbird that says I am too close to his nest!

All the dragonflies seemed to be female.

Widow Skimmer female

unidentified flower

Young Killdeer, maybe?

Well.....that was a very decisive and informative post! I've got more question marks than anything else. Some weeks are like that.

Happy 4th of July to all of you. Celebrate our freedom and enjoy some family time!