Back in September the bumblebees had become quite active around the flowers, and I was watching this one in particular as it collected some pollen from this finch-plucked flower, and then it crawled out onto these two petals and it stopped moving . . . for about 8 to 10 minutes. Then it started its wing machine . . .

Here's something you don't see every day, a Leucistic Sandhill Crane. This fall while watching the sandhills come in waves from the northwest to circle and land in the marsh, one really stood out as the sun highlighted its white wings . . .

A female Whooping Crane (aka #14-15) takes off in the early morning after roosting overnight with her migrating companions, a flock of sandhill cranes. With the sun below the horizon and the skies beginning to brighten with yellows and oranges, different groups of cranes would begin to chatter and then take off . . .

This Great Blue Heron was pretty proud of his catch a couple of months ago as it was snagged in the middle of the pond and then walked all of the way back to the shoreline where it gave it a couple of thumps with its bill before enjoying the tasty treat.

Can you find a whooping crane hanging out with some Sandhills in this shallow pond? There are now 826 whooping cranes in North America as of Feb 2020, up from a low of 16 birds in 1941 (US Fish and Wildlife) . . .

Found some trumpeter swans taking a break from their migration recently, and caught one showing off its wingspan. I'm always struck by just how white and beautiful their feathers are, what a treasure they are.

Wild turkeys tend to break off into female flocks and male flocks, and I found a beautiful group of female turkeys foraging in a field near the woods. There were 20 to 30, moving leaves aside and scratching around for snacks . . .

Check out this bumblebee from last August as it was flying in for a sunflower. The pollen is sticking to the bumblebee everywhere, perhaps at capacity since you can see some of it falling off behind it. Fascinating little creatures they are.

The wind was quite blustery out of the north, and I was fascinated by the sandhill cranes that would ride the wind to the south with speed and then bank back to the north to land in the field. As they glided back to the north . . .

This Red-winged Blackbird was none too happy with this Osprey flying over his territory, so the chase was on. After a couple of maneuvers, it was Osprey 1, RWB 0.