Blue Grass visit....

We decided to check out Blue Grass thinking there would still be snow on the ground, but actually we didn't see much snow, but lots of hunting birds.We saw a Harrier swooping low over the ground several times. Possibly it was more than one, since the area is fairly large.
A little more of him than I usually see. I love how they fly so low over the ground. It makes them easier for me to photograph than the hawks.

This Kestrel actually didn't fly away immediately and I got a good photo for a change! They are so pretty with their "war-paint" streaked faces!

Saw 2-3 Herons at a distance.

The Mockingbird was huddled in the briar patch keeping an eye on "his" pear trees.

We saw hawks 4-5 times, but this is the only one that sat still briefly for me to take a photo.

Deciding that he should take off now.

Way out in the middle of the biggest lake there was a melted area in the ice that was surrouded by Canada Geese, Mallards, Coots, and some other sort of duck with white on it.

I think these are the Coots.

I saw several of these funny cracked areas around twigs sticking up out of the water.

Dried flowers.

This is not a good photo, but I will stick it in anyway. We saw numerous birds along the edges of the meadows and road that we think were Meadowlarks, but they flew away each time before I could get any good photos. When they flew they had white outer tail feathers and they sat in the low grass like Meadowlarks. I would guess that in a 3-4 more weeks there will be many Meadowlarks in this area. This bird was in the road and I wasn't sure what it was......a Horned Lark? I have seen them in this area before.

It was a good day for seeing the birds of prey, and also quite a few songbirds, even when I couldn't tell what they were!

Winter is getting boring, and so are my posts....

Every time I look through my photos for something to post, it seems like I just posted the very same bird a few days before......over and over. As much as I love my regular birds, I'm getting way too many photos of the same birds. The Carolina Wren looking for suet or peanut butter on the pine cone.
"Hmmmmm...maybe there's some under here!"

I'm almost beginning to like this guy....or at least I've gotten used to the fact that he is going to steal all the peanut butter and suet if he can.

This is not one of my squirrels. I was sitting the car waiting for Mike to drop something off at his parent's house when I noticed a squirrel heading to his nest in the neighbor's tree. I would love to know what their nest looks like inside and how do they keep all those leaves together.

Mr. Mean still chasing everyone away. He's almost worst then the Starlings.

Blue Jay checking out the "spa".

Enjoying the water.

Downy male

Trying the "down under" approach.

This icicle dripped between the railings of the deck causing a Stalagmite/stalactite connection.

Mike took these last two shots the day of the snow. I thought they were both pretty and worth posting even if the snow is now mostly gone.

He was willing to walk down the road to get a good photo....I was too lazy.

Crab Orchard Lake cont.......

As the light worsened, it also got rather beautiful. Crab Orchard is a very large lake with a couple of causeways that cross it. We followed a map across one of them and around a small area of the refuge.
A lone fisherman at the end of the pier.

Some gulls waiting to see if he catches anything!

I liked the light on the water

The sun was still fairly high, but too many clouds. This was the night before the snow storm.

This was a small pond we went by. The light made the pond look like aluminum foil.

"Duck Butts in Aluminum"

Backing off a bit gave a more golden glow :-)

We passed a lot of fences and gates and this sign indicating that during the war this was a huge Ordnance Plant. I guess if you are going to make bombs, out in the middle of nowhere is a good place to do it. There is still activity going on there in one part.

Another little pond was surrounded by tall grass. I bet in warmer weather this is a pretty place. We will definitely have to go back on a sunnier day.

There was a lot of tree damage still evident from the huge ice storm of 2008. This isn't part of it, but the road was lined with damaged areas.

Hmmm......this little pile of feathers was next to the viewing platform. Someone had a meal. Hawk or maybe an animal hunting?

This is out of order, but I liked this shot :-)

Well, by this time it was really getting dark and we have a 2 hours journey back home. We will go back. I know there is lots more to see including a railroad you can ride. This lake is on the edge of the Shawnee National Forest, which covers the southern tip of Illinois. Same area that I posted last year from Garden of the Gods.

Lake of Egypt and Crab Orchard Lake, Illinois....

On Thursday.....before the snow on Friday, we had one sunny day! We decided to hop in the car and head over to southern Illinois and try to get to either Lake of Egypt or Crab Orchard Lake and see what we could find of interest. We got a rather late start, and the day that started out beautiful was beginning to cloud over by the time we finally got to the lakes....a 2 hour drive. Right after we crossed over into Illinois, we were passing a field that was filled with blackbirds, and 1000's more were streaming in! They ended up covering two entire fields and kept swarming back and forth. This was the largest swarm that I have ever seen. I have a video at the end of this post that shows one group crossing over to join the other group and then all lifting into the air, making it almost black! Creepy and cool all at the same time! They seemed to be Red-Wing Blackbirds and Grackles. There may have been Starlings, too, but who could tell in that huge mass of birds!
With a great deal of trouble we found Lake of Egypt by a back road that we later realized was not the best way to get there. We ended up at a boat launch area with not much to see. The lake is very large and there were nice homes along the side opposite us. I'm sure in the summer it is a popular recreational area.

Another view with the nice rocky edge showing.

I liked this rock and the stuff growing on it.

The lichen on top.
Not much to see, and we wanted to head to Crab Orchard which has a refuge area and would probably have more to see. So we headed back through the small towns in the area.

While passing through one, we saw this small lake that was fenced in and marked as "polluted..keep out". There were some interesting looking ducks on the water so I got out to take a photo.....and of course they immediately decided to head to the other end of the pond! I'm not sure what they are. My best guess from the white patches on the wings and a white patch I can see on a face would be Goldeneye? Feel free to correct me if you know what they are!

We stopped at the very nice visitor's center at Crab Orchard and got a map that will be handy for future trips and a one-day pass to drive around in the lake area. We found a spot with a viewing hide right away and could see there were geese there, just waiting for us :-)

I love the way their heads stick up over the grass at the edge of this pond.

Of course they all flew to the water as we arrived. I'm very good at scaring birds into flight when they see my camera coming :-) All Canada Geese plus some Mallard Ducks.

The light was starting to get cloudy, but it made the water look neat.

They landed out on the water....a rather large group of them. There were a few more in a field beside the pond that didn't fly away.

One goose all alone. I don't know why it wasn't with any of the others. I liked how it looked in these grasses.

Below is the blackbird swarm.

I found it impossible to do either video or still photos that showed how really big this swarm was! I couldn't fit enough of them into the photo frame at any one time.

I'll post some more from this trip tomorrow.