Pelicans

I finally got out of the house to sketch, the other day...Cooley Lake is a magnet in migration seasons. 

It's an old oxbow of the Missouri River, abandoned years ago when the river changed course, and because of tine and eutrophication, it's very shallow.  I once watched a pair of dogs run all the way across it, barely getting wet to the nose.  It's got more water in it than it has in a long time! There were rafts of ducks, a few Canada geese, and my friend Phil Jeffries, a retired Missouri Department of Conservation photographer and biologist who shares his magnificent bird photos with me, saw some eagles there a few days earlier, though I wasn't as fortunate when I was there, this time.

The last few times I've been out there, I've seen white pelicans, fascinating birds that look more prehistoric than most!  They're usually silent away from their nesting colonies, but here's what they sound like there. Just click on the audio.

It was a very windy day, so very few birds were actually on the wing.  Most kept to the safety of the water or the land.  Here, a flock of pelicans with a few cormorants floated away from me as I tried to photograph them.  Glad I carry binoculars in the Jeep!