Lake Arbor

Lake Arbor, about a 10 acre or so urban lake is about a half mile down Pomona Drive from our house.  Rocky and I - Connie also on weekends - walk around it almost every day.  There's always waterfowl on the lake.  In the winter it's the colorful winter ducks.  This time of year the summer residents are coming in plus lots of migrants passing through.  Some days I take my camera to document what we see. There are a lot of huge carp in the lake that are just now starting to jump.  Will be another couple weeks before they start thrashing around in the shallows spawning.

Cattle egret in breeding plumage at Lake Arbor, Arvada, Colorado, April 26, 2017.

Another cattle egret at Lake Arbor.  Been four to six at the lake flying around and grazing for several days.  

Always quite a few double-crested cormorants working the lake, but this morning I counted 22.  I think a lot  are migrants. 

Have seen eared-grebes at the lake on several occasions in the spring.  This one was here on the 26th.

Black-crowned night herons are common summer residents at the lake.  This one was fishing on the 26th. 

Curved-bills and More

Been down to Lake Pueblo State Park several times this winter and spring.  They have been upgrading the electrical campgrounds so there was no electricity available.  Rocky and I had to boon-dock it, but we do just fine.  Wait for some milder weather, and we can heat with my Little Buddy propane heater, and we can recharge our batteries every day with my 100 Watt, portable solar panel.  Sure nice to have electricity in the winter, though, as the little electric cube heater does a nice job, and nice to have better lights with those long winter nights.

We've seen all the usual suspects down at Lake Pueblo - curved-bill thrashers, canyon towhees, Townsend's solitaire, and a few others.  This last trip we camped under a thrasher's favorite tree so we enjoyed his bright, mockingbird-like song most the day.  Nice to wake up to, as well.  The thrashers and towhees hang around camp looking for crumbs.  I've even seen both fly into the camper looking for goodies if I left the screen door open.

Got a few shots from around town here to include, too.  Had either a Cooper's or sharp-shinned hawk at the pond earlier in the winter.  It was a nice day and I had the waterfalls running when I looked out the window and saw a larger bird fly down to the pond.  Ran to get the cameras, but it was gone when I got back.  But, it came back and I managed to get a shot or two.  The pond attracts quite a variety of birds.  Makes the pond even more enjoyable.  All of my fish survived the winter, even the one native born here managed to grow up and not get eaten by the adults.

Curved-bill thrasher singing so bright on an April morning at Lake Pueblo. 

Curved-bill thrasher at Lake Pueblo

Curved-bill thrasher doing some grooming. 

Rocky and I were out walking around near-by Standley Lake earlier this spring when we spied a large coyote walking down the road.  He was a pretty big one and didn't seem to mind us at all.  There are a couple other misc. shots I'll include and describe them in the captions.

Either a Cooper's hawk or sharp-shinned hawk at the pond.

Looked up one afternoon this last fall and saw this great horned owl sitting up in the neighbor's maple tree watching us. 

A fluffed up canyon towhee on a chilly morning at Lake Pueblo. 

Large coyote at Standley Lake park.

Pair of green-winged teal on Clear Creek in Wheat Ridge

One of our camps at Lake Pueblo.  Note the solar panel to the left of the truck.

King fisher along Clear Creek in Wheat Ridge.

Townsend's solitaire at Lake Pueblo