Birds everywhere

Went for a walk in the Fill to wake up.  Head had been about to hit my desk in drowsiness.  Made my down through columns of swirling gnats (someday I'll find out why they do that.)  First encounter: a young heron:  missing the long, fancy chest feathers, and the head ones.  Seems to be possibly molting, and picking at it's feathers.  It almost looked shaved.  Kinda' endearing.  I talk to it, it looks at me.  I'm not carrying a camera.  I leave and walk about 100 feet further up the road, heron flies over and lands on a log in front of me and looks at me.  We contemplate one another and then I continue down the road, and the heron walks down the length of the log.  Intriguing.  Further along a neck stretches above the grasses to look at me, female mallard, she has ducklings, bright yellow.

The cormorants vocally and physically jockey for position on the island, knocking the geese and each other off of the logs.  Very aggressive.  Next up, couple of wood ducks swim past on the canal.  Smaller birds chatter and flit between the trees, so many I can't keep track.  A hawk practices soaring, rising higher and higher until it disappears from my view, crows are disinterested and let it be.  Feral apple trees in full bloom, the air both sweet and resin-y from the combination of flowers and cottonwood trees.

Walking back, I pass a flicker, soon joined by two others, each of them taking turns leaping from one tree to the other and making that "wakka-wakka" sound (as my sister calls it.)

Seems like a good day to be a bird.

Last one

The water birds are few and far between.  Song everywhere, no one wants to be photographed today: shy or annoyed.  I watch a crow chase a hawk above the fields, it's piercing cry filling the sky.  Then another appears, enjoying the flight, wings outstretched, black fingers of wingtips, light body, against the blue sky, circling and soaring.  The crow more interested in chasing the longer-tailed one.  (One might have been an osprey.)

These will probably be the last two cherry tree pictures for the year.  The blossoms have mostly been replaced by leaves.  This is April 13 and April 11.

April 13/L Herlevi 2014

April 11/L Herlevi 2014

Spring is everywhere now

While I was daily documenting the progress of the cherry trees, the world around me rushed into spring.  Dressed itself in a finery of green and gold, glowing in its awakening.  The trees on the street have burst into blossom, I didn't see them until tonight.  Surprised.  Everything is always changing.

The sun recedes further and further away, and the clouds cover what light remains.  The robin sings it's evening song until the darkness of night has descended.

(No pictures yesterday.  Am coming close to the end of this series.)

April 9/L Herlevi 2014

April 7

Warmest day in months, temperature hit around 70 degrees.  Last one for a while.  Rain returns tomorrow, and the blossoms fall like confetti upon the ground.  Soon it will all be leaves.

April 7/L Herlevi 2014

Lawn flowers/L Herlevi 2014

April 6

Quiet in the Quad.  Other trees bloom, get their moment in the sun.

Blossoms almost gone/L Herlevi 2014

Other trees have their moment/L Herlevi 2014

Crab Apple/L Herlevi 2014

April 5

The rain returns and the trees transition from flower to leaf.  Another moment fading until next year.

April 5/L Herlevi 2014

I think I'll try to do a time lapse of all these.

April 4

Weather holds out one day longer than predicted.  The crowds thin.  Petals fall.

April 4/L Herlevi 2014

April 3

The petals fall like snowflakes.  The leaves filling in the blanks, equal parts green and pink.  The rains return and knock more petals free.  Everything changes.

April 3/L Herlevi 2014

Leaves/L Herlevi 2014
 

April 2

Just a picture.

April 2/L Herlevi 2014

The first of April

Walked in the Fill during lunch.  I saw an eagle soaring above the fields from a distance, and when I got there, there were very few birds on the ponds, and only a couple of swallow in the sky.  I did run across this heron, a smallish one.

Great Blue Heron/L Herlevi 2014

Large crowds in the Quad again.  Blossoms still hanging on.  Almost to 60 degrees today.  The sky was a glorious wide expanse of bluish green aftern sunset.

April 1/L Herlevi 2014