National Wildlife Refuge (again)

I think this was one of the last nice days left before winter hits (I keep saying that and then the next week brings nice weather, so I'm not real good at predicting things). I went to the Cedar Avenue part of the National Wildlife Refuge in Bloomington - I haven't been there in awhile, not since they did some reconstruction work and ripped things apart to rebuild some ponds.

It turned out to be a nicer day and better photo ops than I expected. I've been hoping to get some nice fall color shots but that is not going to happen this year. Instead, I settled for a lot of bird shots which I'm mostly happy with. I love this first one - it looks better full size but I think it still looks good shrunk down.

The only real excitement was seeing a pair of juvenile bald eagles, one of which dove down on a pond and snatched up a fish or something. I tried to get a shot of that and mostly succeeded, but it's too blurry to bother posting. I think my camera was focusing on the background and not the bird. :-( Was still pretty cool to see and hear them.

Something which was not as cool to see and hear were the flocks of geese headed south. I'm going to miss summer/fall. Even though it was an atypical fall, I still hate the transition from fall to winter when it's cold/rainy and gray.

I'll console myself with the thought that snow will be here soon enough and then I can go skiing.

More photos are here.