Odds and Ends…

It’s been a quiet couple of days in the park, and do you know what that means, boys and girls? That means it’s arty picture day, where I try to supplement the meager content I have with pictures of super interesting snow and ice formations. Yay!

First up is this fascinating bit if snow that artfully curled up instead of simply sloughing off a tree trunk during the beautiful sunshine yesterday afternoon. Ooooh!

Here’s another one of some amazing bumps and whirls that have formed in the snow and ice on the river. Aaaah!

In hindsight, I should have used the camera setting I discovered for the first image on this one, but I’m showing them out of order, and I hadn’t stumbled across it in desperation yet.

Happily, those are all the arty images worth sharing, so now we can get to the meager animal pictures. As you may recall, yesterday afternoon was still, sunny, and wonderfully warmer than recent days, and this pair of red-breasted mergansers seem to be just basking in it with a little mid-river nap.

This female northern cardinal showed off just how versatile her head feathers are while hiding in the bushes. Yup, that’s the same bird.

• 

• 

The flock of goldeneyes seemingly continues to grow, and this time they were spooked by someone on the other side of the river, not me, so I could see it coming and try for a clearer shot of the mass scramble. I’d be surprised if there weren’t three dozen birds by now, but they are crazy tricky to count because they are continually diving to forage on the river bottom.

• 

• 

Our little friend, the hermit thrush or veery was back on the sumac between the falls and the beer garden. I tried to kneel down to get some blue in the background, but I was too slow and he or she had had enough of me.

Finally, I did manage to capture one image with a slice of that amazing blue sky from yesterday, and here it is.