On a COLD and sunny day last weekend, Alan and I decided to visit one of our favorite day trip places.  Squaw Creek is about a two hour drive north of Kansas City.  This marshland refuge hosts spectacular waterfowl migrations at different times of the year.  It is also the home of dozens of bald eagles in the winter.  You never know what you will find there.  That is one of the most interesting things about it.

As we had hoped, there were several dozen bald eagles there.  Most were sitting on the edge where ice meets water way out in the middle of the lake.  Tens of thousands of mallard ducks bobbed along in what was left of the unfrozen water.  The eagles posed like sentries, waiting for a mallard to make the wrong move.

Although I have very good camera equipment, I don’t have anything that can bring an eagle that is three football fields away up close.   So we enjoyed watching them through our binoculars.   There is nothing quite like watching a wild eagle fly…

As we continued our travel around the lake, we found a group of several hundred snow geese right along the shore.  I just couldn’t get over how beautiful the contrast was between the white of the geese and the dark, brilliantly blue color of the ice.

The following goose is still in the gray phase.  He will whiten into his winter feathers as the cold season progresses…