Cold weekend field trips, if you will, got us through early February. Here are some photos from a trip on Sunday, February 8, to the Calumet region, in search of waterfowl where much of Lake Michigan and rivers were frozen. We started out at the Cal Sag Channel and then moved to the Bend of the Little Calumet River where we had some Mute Swans.

Ducks seen frequently that day included Common Goldeneye, Greater Scaup, Red-breasted Mergansers and Redheads.

I lost track of exactly where some of these photos were taken, but these Greater Scaup may have been at the Cal Sag Channel.

We did see three Great Blue Herons at Cal Sag Channel. I followed one in flight over the water.

O’Brien Lock & Dam had some Hooded Mergansers that I barely captured.

And we had a lot of Bald Eagles near the CID Landfill area. My best photos were of younger birds.

Regional scenes included the old bridge over the Calumet River and a view of the frozen Lake Michigan with the Gary, Indiana steel mills in the distance.

At Steelworkers Park along Lake Michigan, we had the greatest number of Redheads, certainly more than I have ever seen.

Finishing up at Steelworker’s, an American Crow flew into view. I can never resist a crow.

There are other field trips to report on, but this is all I can manage for the moment. What started out as a head cold a couple weeks ago turned into a general malaise that attacked my body intermittently with various, if brief, ailments, making naps moire frequent and doing whatever I had to do just to get through the day, so to speak. I am happy to report that I feel much better everyday, and today feels 99% normal. It doesn’t hurt either to be experiencing a brief warmup after our dip into severe cold the last couple of weeks: I am no longer wearing long underwear, although I can’t say I’ve put it away yet…