Birdwatching!

Ricky and I spent an entire day birdwatching! It's been forever since we've been able to do that!

Turtles are back!
This log was apparently the place to be 

Osprey!

I was really excited to see wood flowers blooming. They make everything more cheery.

We sent our flowers field guide home, so I don't have names for most of the flowers. I'll update next time I'm home to look them up.

Black-capped Chickadee

This is probably the prettiest bluebird picture I've ever taken. It was SO EXCITING to get both the male and female in the same shot!

The rare and elusive White-tailed Deer.

This cardinal was SO BRIGHT!

We heard his tell-tale "who-cooks-for-you" long before we flushed him from his hollow tree. But then we HAD to find him!

He watched us Very Carefully!

We never get tired of seeing these Barred Owls!

Pink Dutchman's Britches!

A whole line of Tree Swallows - and a Barn Swallow on the far right

Ring-billed Ducks!

Ring-billed Ducks - we saw a LOT of these today!

I thought I was taking a picture of Ring-billed Ducks,
but then I spotted the raccoon behind them!

The Raccoon swims to shore

A whole tree full of blackbirds

Wedding Plans Underway!

According to every wedding website I've read, it takes 6+ months to plan a wedding.
Rick's decided the rest of the world is just inefficient as it's taken "us" (used loosely) just under a week to book everything except a florist and rings.
Which I'm working on, hopefully today I'll have the florist taken care of, and rings involves dragging Rick to a jewelers, which he's afraid of. Which is ridiculous.

But in any case, I'm excited to say Invitations Are In The Mail and our wedding website www.weddingwire.com/rickerintelsrow is up and running!

I wanted an "engagement photo" to put on our invitation, but because we planned everything so quickly we didn't have time to book a professional, so we went out to the Iowa Arboretum to take our own!

I looked like a nutter running back and forth to the tripod, but they turned out really well!

Hawk Spotting around the Iowa Arboretum

Rick likes to stalk Larry Dau's smugmug page, partly becuase he takes INCREDIBLE pictures, and mostly because he takes incredible pictures in OUR AREA.
So this morning Rick discovered Larry had found Rough Legged Hawks near the Iowa Arboretum (and a little screech owl), so off we went.

We never found the owl. But we got some great hawk pictures!

A red-tailed hawk with- something unidentifiable - and a murder of crows waiting for him to finish so they can eat the leftovers.

This guy, according to our Sibley Field Guide, is a Harlan's hawk - a subspecies of the red-tailed hawk! We were SO EXCITED to see this, though we're still out on wether or not it counts towards our life list. Still, 1st sighting!

The Harlan's Hawk taking off!

Rough Legged Hawk - 1st sighting! Thanks Larry Dau :)
Our life-list is now officially at 177 birds positively identified!

Rough Legged Hawk taking off

A Black-capped Chickadee at the Iowa Arboretum

Female Downy at the Iowa Arboretum

Rough Legged Hawk

Rough Legged Hawk

A 3rd-4th year juvenile Bald Eagle, identified by the eye stripe.  Bald eagles don't reach maturity or gain their white heads and tails until they're about 5 years old.

Birdwatching at the Pits

Because we have so few 50 degree days in January, Rick and I took advantage of the nice weather Saturday, (it snowed Sunday) and went out to do some birdwatching.

Little Male Downy

Red Tailed Hawk

Mushrooms! Rick makes fun of me for photographing fungus, but they're so interesting! And these were REALLY BIG!

A few geese at Ada Hayden

We didn't find anything quite as exotic as the Snowy Owl we saw on the 1st, but it's always nice to find a few Downys.

Rollo movie

Rollo introducing himself to the 3rd graders.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3829DvDZ37U

Happy New Year!

Rick and I kicked off 2015 with some road-side birdwatching!

Our first bird of the year was a great shot of this little male Kestrel (there was some damage to the feathers on his tail, but when he took off he seemed to be flying alright)

We also started 2015 with a brand new bird to add to our life list!

SNOWY OWL!

This owl was happily sitting in a field looking around when we spotted him from the road. 

Slightly zoomed in version so you can see his face!

Christmas at Rick's

As official photographer this year, I got to take all the Christmas Pictures of the gathering of the clan on Rick's (Mom's) side of the family.

Rick and Bob - they weren't really posing for a picture, I was just experimenting with whether I needed to use flash or not, but it came out well so I decided to post it. 

Bob, Janice, and Ted - who was surprisingly cooperative about having his picture taken.

Rick, Erin, Janice, Bob, and Renee

Rick and I, 

Grandma and Grandpa - who was surprisingly cooperative about having THIS picture taken.

The Clan
(minus 5, we're missing one family and Aunt Kelli was home with the flu)