Come On Spring!

It was a beautiful, sunny day today and I made a quick trip down to the wildlife refuge. Not a lot of activity, which I expected, but I did get some nice shots of the ducks and swans that hang around all year.  

From top to bottom they are:  Northern Pintails, Hooded Merganser, Swans (sorry, I can't tell if they are Tundra or Trumpeter, we have both here), and a Northern Pintail.
 
There were also a number of Gadwalls and Green-winged Teals, but the elusive little rascals stayed out of reach of the camera lens.  A lot of Mallards too, but they are so common that I don't even attempt photos of them anymore.

I saw a single Osprey that had a fish in its talons.  I'm told that on occasion they will winter over, and being that this has been a relatively mild winter, I am not surprised that it was there.  

A lot of Turkeys out and about today!  I counted at least 62 of them, in small groups scattered about the stubble of the surrounding pastures. 

Not a single White-tail Deer today, which surprised me. They are typically so visible that most of the locals simply ignore them, but being that it was such a nice, warm day I expected to see them.  Apparently they had other plans.  


One thing that did surprise me was three - count 'em, three - Red-winged Blackbirds "singing" and displaying in the cattails already!  The forecast for the next ten days is low to mid 40s and even up to 50 degrees on a couple of days.  Six more weeks of winter?  I think the groundhog lied...