After four days of being down, and I mean down, I finally feel like a human being again, and wanted to post these pictures that I took at the Refuge, Tuesday, in the late afternoon. I stopped first at the lagoon and walked out on the boardwalk. The first thing I notices was that it was lower than the last time I was there. Perhaps it had gotten too deep for the cranes and herons. The first thing I saw, as did several other people was a blue heron sitting on one of the logs in the water...

He stood there with one leg tucked up, and didn't move for the longest time. This one guy with a camera with a HUGE lens was snapping pictures faster than a speeding bullet. I, with my little Nikon Coolpix digital, didn't feel one bit compromised. I was getting just as good pictures as he was! Suddenly the heron jumped off the log and started wading out from it, probably having spotted fish! Dinner at last!...

On the other side of the lagoon I saw a bunch of white birds, which after I looked at them with my binoculars, saw that they were pelicans - maybe about seven of them. First time I had seen pelicans here, but they do come here, which was verified when I read the count of the birds at the Refuge in the paper - about 50 pelicans had been seen...

Driving off on my road trip around the Refuge, I noted that the color was very muted and trees were beginning to drop their leaves. The various fields had groups of Sand Hill cranes in them feeding. I came upon a flooded area, where I saw a different kind of duck...and strangely enough, today Phil sent me a picture of the same one, which I looked up for him and for me too! They are coots...with white beaks, and if you look carefully at one of my pictures, you can see the little white area under their short tails. Otherwise they are very dark...see how many you can count in this picture...

Two coots and a longer billed duck (not sure what its name is)...

Rub-a-dub, dub, Three coots in a tub (well not a tub!)...

I drove along, seeing the cranes and knowing that in less than an hour they would be flying back to where they spend the night. I came upon a line of cars all stopped and out to my right was a field of hundreds of snow geese honking to one another as they filled their tummys. What a sight!

Just down from where the Snow Geese were, I spotted some deer, the first I have seen in the Refuge, having their evening supper...

I then high-tailed it to the Flight Deck, as the sun was getting ready to set, and all the action would be taking place there. What a beautiful scene - the moon was full with its mirror image in the water...

There were hundreds of ducks already settling in. The Sand Hill cranes already there would set up a hue and cry each time a new flock of cranes flew in...

And they just kept flying in, in waves, from the north, south, and east, from fields where they had been fattening themselves up.

You could see the V formation, and then the cranes on the ground would start calling, and the cranes in the air would answer, circle and land with wings spread out and with a hop as they came to a stop. It was amazing, and I just stopped taking pictures and watched this incredible sight take place.

Along with the cranes, the Snow Geese started flying in, but they had a different pattern about them. They would fly over, then looking like they were wobbling, would reform in a group, fly off, and come back again, and then circle and finally land, in a different area off from the cranes. Flocks and flocks of snow geese were also coming in...

What an incredible sight! I stayed and watched for quite a while. My pictures don't do justice to how many birds were settling in for the night.

The water was still, the mountains pink in the east, and the temperature was dropping. It was time for me to head back to Lemitar, with a smile on my face!

Life is good!

A hui hou,
I love you all,
Sally