Friends and Birds

What could be better? Tuesday we met Ron and Barbara at the Gilbert Riparian Preserve. We hadn't seen them since we met for dinner in Colorado in May, so it was good to catch up. And we had a fun time looking at all the birds on the seven ponds. It was a cool, sunny day and many birds were enjoying the weather. Do you suppose they knew there was a cold front coming through for the rest of the week?

These ring-necked ducks were lined up for our viewing pleasure.



We saw quite a few mocking birds.



Barbara quickly identified this verdin.



It probably helped that she had binoculars. In fact, all three of my companions had them. I was carrying my heavy Canon SLR with 300mm lens. Ron and John were looking at the same thing. I wonder what it was?





Don't we all have good looking hats?

This isn't a very good photo, but if you look closely, you will see that the cormorant has a fish in its mouth.



After finishing his meal, he flew out of the water and dried his (her?) wings.



We felt this great blue heron was defending his territory. Every time the great white egret came near, the heron would approach and then the egret would move away.



There were quite a few pied-billed grebes on the ponds.



Look at this flock of black-necked stilts, standing in shallow water.



This least sandpiper was looking for something to eat.



And we saw quite a few Anna's hummingbirds.





We hadn't done any serious bird watching for quite a while and really enjoyed our time. It always helps where there is water around. There are more birds and then tend to be bigger--and thus easier to identify.

Finally, the humans were ready to eat, so we drove to a nearby Souper Salad and ate and talked for another two hours. What a great day.