The Peanut Gallery

I went down to the lakefront this morning because after days of stormy clouds and 60 mph winds this was the only day of predicted sunshine. Sunshine was in abundance, at first glistening off the water by the yacht club with no birds in sight.

South of the Yacht Club

Flying Crow

But that changed within a minute or two of my arrival. Of course the Crow Crowd was following me. Carrying my camera in one hand and the bag of goodies hanging off the other arm isn’t ideal but I thought it might be a good day for flight pictures.

Fuzzy Crow

I’m calling this crow Fuzzy because his head feathers are so brush-like. Maybe this is a bad hair day for a crow but I think he’s pretty cute.

Sunbathing

A friendly Horned Grebe surfaced close to the sidewalk shore.

Horned Grebe

Farther out I spotted the Red-Necked Grebe, a less-frequent visitor.

Red-Necked Grebe

And a Red-Breasted Merganser took off to catch up with her buddies.

Female Red-Breasted Merganser

Eventually a Black-Capped Chickadee will come for peanuts too.

my little Chickadee

I sometimes shell the peanuts for them if they’re fast and sneaky enough to make off with the goods before the larger birds come back. But I caught this Chickadee shelling his own peanut a few days ago. It was almost as big as he is.

White-Wing flying

When I got up to the park this morning, the White-Winged Crow youngster was showing off her caching abilities.