Posted Feberuary 1, 2024
Random Captures
January, by all accounts, was an useasonably warm month. The Front Range featured very cold temperatures for a few days and only a small amount of snow. The frigid, windy days were replaced by pleaant afternoons for the rest of the month.
During the month, I made several short trips and captured a nice variety of subject matter, as seen in the gallery below. Most lakes are frozen over, so many of the ducks, geese and herons are clustered into smaller areas. Great Blue Herons were active on the ice at St. Vrain State Park. The typically skittish birds were much more cooperative⏤each hoping an ice fisherman would throw out a few fish scraps.
II have been looking forward to “winter”, but as you can see in the gallery photos, there hasn’t been a lot of snow this year. Locals tell me, “It will come”. A winter storm is in the forecast for the first weekend of February. Unless we get a lot more snow than predictefd, it might slow down the golfers for only a few days!
I made two trips to Barr Lake State Park, where I had hoped to see large numbers of Bald Eagles. There were a few around, but the open water was too far away. There were far fewer eagles in the area, than the local news reported. Even so, I found Northern Harriers, American Kestrels, Northern Flickers, Red-winged Blackbirds, Red-tailed Hawks, and a couple of Swainson’s Hawks around the lake’s hiking paths. Canada Geese are abundant in this area right now. The fly over my home in waves as they go to and from the pastures. The photo above was taken at Barr Lake with a Sony A1 and Sony 200-600mm lens.
