It was so nice outside that after work I took the dog over to the William Land Park for a walk.  Lots of bird action there today.  The first thing we saw was a female Wood Duck on top of a duck box attached to one of the trees by the large pond. She flew down to look through the doorway, but didn’t go inside.  I don’t know if she didn’t like the look of it, or if there was something already occupying it, or what but she just dropped down to the ground after checking it out.  (Wood Ducks actually have extra-strong hooked toenails to let them cling to and climb up trees if they need to, and like their nests up to 50 feet off the ground.) When the female left the box, she flew right over to where her handsome colorful mate was standing by the side of the pond.  Then I noticed there were two cormorants in the water.  I got waaaaay too many photos of them, hah!  But I WAS able to get shots of one catching a fish which was cool.

After that I saw two Canada Geese mating in the water.  They were done by the time I got the camera focused on them – a real quickie! – but I ended up with photos of them with the water running off their bodies in sheets.  Looked really pretty.  Thennnnnn, I came across a Green Heron that was standing on the side of the pond.  I’d take a few steps toward him and take some photos; take a few more steps, and a few more photos… I kept that up until he got annoyed with me.  He was still for most of the time I was watching him, but he hissed and gaped his mouth at a pair of ducks when they came too close to him.  As the heron flew off, I noticed an egret further down the bank.  I watched him try to catch fish, but he was unsuccessful.

Thennnnnn, I spent some time photographing a pair of crows, and came across a Western Bluebird which was VERY odd for this urban park (but it was hiding its head in shadow, so the photos I took of it didn’t turn out very good).  As I passed by where the Bluebird was, I could see that one of the Cormorants had come up out of the water and was drying its feathers off in the sun, so I got some photos of that before the dog and I headed back to the car.  We’d ended up spending about 90 minutes there.