Walking on Water

You'd be forgiven for thinking that this ring-billed gull was having a leisurely stroll across the surface of the water at Lakeside Park. It does appear to be doing just that. The ripples on the surface of the lake were in evidence, but the water was completely frozen. I have no idea how water can freeze so fast as to preserve ripples, but as they say, the camera does not lie.

I have seen ring-billed gulls diving for fish at Lakeside Park in warmer weather, but what was so enticing to this gull and its friend, on a frozen lake?

Frozen hard-boiled eggs! That's right, hard-boiled eggs that two city workers discarded when they took an early morning break.

The gift of a free meal did not go unnoticed for long, and the gulls were soon joined by another scavenger.

These American crows were not going to miss out.

That gave me the perfect opportunity to get close enough to the crows for some detail.

There has been so much activity at Lakeside Park recently.

Starlings have been looking for nesting sites and singing from the tops of the fir trees.

Perched on the top of the same fir trees was this bird which at first glance I thought to be a common grackle.

Through the lens of my camera though, it was quite clearly another member of the same family, Icteridae. A brown-headed cowbird.

Woodpecker calls have been echoing around the lake almost nonstop, as have the sounds of their pecking. This red-bellied woodpecker was working its way along the branches of a tree near the water processing plant, but it was soon displaced by a group of starlings when it came a little too close to their nesting hole.

There were many red-bellied woodpeckers at Lakeside Park. At times it was a challenge deciding in which direction I should go.

Pileated woodpeckers were also at Lakeside Park in numbers. I followed the familiar whooping calls to the opposite side of the lake and was really happy to capture a few photos of one of the pileated woodpeckers, high up on the trunk of a dead tree.

I always love seeing pileated woodpeckers, they are so large and so distinctive with that bright red crest!

This animated GIF does not give a true representation of how fast a pileated woodpecker pecks, but it hopefully does give some idea of how they appear when they are pecking.

Song sparrows were back in the pollinator meadow.

And, true to their name, they were singing.

A robin was also hunting in the newly exposed meadow, but what could it find to eat in the grass after a freezing winter?

It is not that often that something breaks my concentration causing me to look skyward, but when the distraction is this big, you simply have to look up.

It is really difficult to say whether the swan was a tundra swan or trumpeter. There doesn't appear to be a break where the black from the face meets the eye and that would indicate a trumpeter swan, but from this angle, I can not be sure.

Keeping your balance on ice is not easy at the best of times. It's even harder when you're on the receiving end of some unwelcome attention.

It's much safer to be on solid ground.

From one common duck to a bird that is just as common. And even though it is quite ordinary, I do really like this photo of a male sparrow.

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