American White Pelicans may look a little wonky, may not be the most beautiful bird, but they are one of the most graceful fliers in the sky. When they pass through this area during their migration in April . . .

Red-tailed hawk displays its gorgeous feathering while staring down earlier this Spring in McHenry County, Illinois.

This great horned owlet was giving us the stare one evening from its nest a couple of weeks before it fledged. Seemed to be saying, "I'll be big and free from this nest soon and won't have to put up with you anymore!"

Flight of the Bumblebee. June 22-28, 2020 has been designated National Pollinator Week to celebrate pollinators and spread the word about what you can do to protect them. Here's more info: https://www.pollinator.org/pollinator-week.

Northern Illinois is in the migratory path for American White Pelicans, and usually by late March or early April of each year they'll stop for a spell in a handful of local lakes. This particular group of 50 or so pelicans had split off from the rest of the bunch (up to a couple hundred) and had gone fishin' . . .

A trumpeter swan fans its beautiful wings in the afternoon sun of a late winter day earlier this year. The snowy-white plumage of the trumpeter swan is stunning, along with the six foot wingspan of our largest native waterfowl in North America.

A Sandhill Crane pauses from foraging in a corn field during an early Spring snow. Two adults and a juvenile were leisurely poking around in the dirt while a gentle snow fell around them. They were surely looking forward to sunnier and warmer days ahead, as we were.

Two trumpeter swans pass each other while leisurely paddling around a lake earlier this year. For those familiar with Dr. Dolittle, the pushmi-pullyu is a gazelle/unicorn cross with two heads at opposite ends of its body. Using your imagination, you could see these two swans as a type of pushmi-pullyu swan due to the angle of the capture. But, just in our imagination . . .

Monarch butterflies are the only butterflies known to make a back-and-forth migration similar to what birds do. They can't survive the winters, so monarchs from our region of the country (upper Midwest) head south to Mexico (the Sierra Madre Mountains) around the October timeframe. This Monarch was captured in flight last September as it flitted from flower to flower drinking up as much nectar as it could before its big journey.

A bumblebee lifts off from a flower filled with a little more pollen after stopping and poking around for a bit. Fun fact: Bumblebees can collect pollen twice as fast as a honey bees.