Striking gold at last…

We did get some snow, though the wind blowing off the warm Lake Michigan water kept the accumulation here to near the bottom of the forecast range. I’m sure some folks are thrilled, but the silver lining for me is that the strong east wind finally blew a common goldeneye our way. This drake is both the first one I’ve seen in Estabrook Park this winter and the first one I’ve managed to capture on film anywhere this season.

Just a bit behind and above the goldeneye, both owls were in today, and this one was hardly hidden at all for a change.

I must have stepped in something on the trail this morning, because my luck was holding, and the red-breasted merganser drake was still on the river as well.

Back up on the bluff, my luck kept coming because as I headed back toward the pond, one of the two red-tailed hawks I had seen when I first visited the pond earlier this morning was being chased over the main parking lot by a couple of crows. Even better, it had just caught a squirrel, and so it didn’t go far before taking a perch. I doubt the hawk was trying to send a message, so I suppose we can just chalk it up to dark irony that it happened to perch with its fresh catch on a squirrel drey. In any case, isn’t that some gorgeous plumage?

Finally, all the open water, at least on the river, is letting the muskrats keep foraging for fresh vegetables, and this one below the falls was so engrossed with what it had found that it let me get surprisingly close for this picture.