Last December When It Was Warm and Memorable

Between Christmas and New Year's I took a week off. One very warm day I went for a walk to our nearby lake. Took the iPod and my little camera. Shot some pics until camera ran out of batteries and never even looked at what I snapped, until today, more than two months later when I shot the crocuses outside.

I birded that day without binoculars - just with eyes. It was a great duck day. I saw belted kingfisher, red tailed hawk, ring necked ducks (very rare), northern shoveler, ruddy ducks, hooded mergansers, American coot, mallard, black duck, gadwal. The ring necked ducks and December belted kingfisher were memorable. I also saw a hermit thrush.

The two pics below are from a trail.




A very tame hermit thrush, relative of the American robin. Note the red tail.




The sky had low overcast and the light was flat and diffuse. Colors muted, no shadows.

Postscript: Monday mid day - on my home computer these two images here are understaed and perfect. At work on this monitor they are dark messes. I brightened up and left both, using original images in evening.