Great Horned Owls and more

Daddy owl taking an afternoon snooze

Barr Lake State Park has one Bald Eagle nest and five Great Horned Owl nests around the park reinforcing it's role as a wildlife sanctuary. Sadly, this years eaglets did not survive the extreme cold earlier in April.  On Sunday I walked the path all the way around the lake, putting on 9.5 miles, in a quest to see and get pictures of all the owl nests. During nesting season the rule is to stay on the path and some of the nests are too far off the trail to get good pictures with the meager zoom on my camera.  Fortunately two of the nests are real close to the trail for good viewing.  I hope you enjoy the pictures.

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Can you see two babies? 

Juvenile eagle - white coloring
hasn't come in

Mom keeping watch with babies
in nest

         

                                                      

Osprey nest

Red-tailed hawk nest

Back in Colorado

April 23 snow welcomes us back

Here we are back outside Denver at Barr Lake State Park.  It is fun to see things in the spring as new life is budding versus being dried out and winding down last fall.  We were promptly welcomed with 3 inches of snow and night time lows around 20. Coming back up here in April may be nixed in future years. We haven't been here long enough to get a lot of pictures but I plan on walking all the way around the lake on Sunday.  There are several owl and hawk nests reported with babies so I hope to get some good pictures.  They think the baby eagles may not have survived the extreme cold that hit a couple weeks ago.  I hope the other babies survived last nights cold and snow.  I'll get pictures posted as I get ones that are worthy.

Barr Lake now has water.
Rockies in the distance.

This pheasant hangs out around us
all the time.

Tucson

We spent the last month in Tucson.  It was pretty low key but active as we visited the Desert Museum, hiked in Sabino Canyon and Tucson Mountain Park, had maintenance done on the motorhome, and visited with family and friends.  I feel kind of bad for the non-Arizona readers that I didn't take pictures to include here.  We've been to these places before so it didn't dawn on me to take the camera along.  I'll just say that if you are in the Tucson area, you need to go to the Desert Museum, Sabino Canyon and Saguaro National Monument.  They are a must see.

We are now on a brief stay in the Phoenix area again for annual doctor appointments and so I can fly to the Frozen Four.  We will start heading north next week to spend a few weeks near Denver.