Out and About - a Lovely Stoll Along the Trails at The Fountain Valley Nature Center

Yesterday, Bill and I went down to the Fountain Valley Nature Center to walk and see if we could find any interesting ducks.

This was a very nice surprise - a Yellow Warbler (male) and a new life bird for us both.

Yellow Warblers are not especially uncommon - we just had not been fortunate enough to see or photograph one before. According to my guide book, the males arrive back in Colorado in late April followed a couple of weeks later by the females. We did not see the female.

One of my favorite birds - a Great Blue Heron. His colors are more distinct than most I see - less overall grey and more white and dark blue.

Fountain Valley has Red-winged Blackbirds everywhere! This male has his full breeding colors on.

This is the female Red-winged Blackbird and you can see just a touch of orange on her wing.

Barn Swallows were thick in the air around the Nature Center building. They fly so quickly that I can never get a decent picture. I don't often get the opportunity to photograph one that is sitting down. Pretty birds.

You can't mistake the profile of a Belted Kingfisher - sitting in a tree over the lake hunting for fish.

The ever-present Canadian Geese were along the banks of the lake - but it was obvious they had spent time walking along the trails as we side-stepped their numerous "presents."

According to the signs, beavers make their home at the center. I didn't see any yesterday - or on previous visits - but did see this tree they had obviously cut down.

As we were heading back to the car, I spotted this adorable little bunny sitting very still by the side of the trail.

Back at the feeders in the yard, we had a couple of Blue Jays come to visit. It was interesting to watch them as they repeatedly displayed - bobbing up and down. I had never seen that behavior before in a jay. They reminded me of the way the Burrowing Owls signal they are uncomfortable with your presence - but we were watching the jays from inside the house. This picture was taken through the kitchen window.

In other news, Bill and I just began a free trial of Netflix - DVD movies by mail. So far we've watched "Avatar" and "The Bucket List" - and tonight it's "It's Complicated." Since we've never been to the movies, all of the selections are new to us. So far the experience has been good - there is a huge selection of movies and TV shows to choose from and the DVDs arrive quickly - within a day or two. We have learned to clean the discs with window cleaner before viewing them to prevent picture distortion. I love that there are no commercials and it's much cheaper than upgrading our Direct TV service. However, its likely to be expensive in the future as now we are considering a new flat screen HD TV and Blue ray player - but I want to wait until our current dinosaur dies and we are sure we want to continue watching movies instead of TV.