Shrikes! Larks! and Killdeer

What a great morning! Picked up a 200-400 F4 zoom at the last minute last night due to the holiday weekend, you get three days for the price of one, beauty!  A little late getting out of the house with no plan, but hey there is stuff everywhere and with spring here more coming all the time. Highlights of the day were shrikes to be certain, 5 or 6 different birds.  Here is a shot of a Horned Lark taken with my trusty back up D80 and the 70-300:

Did I mention that there were Shrikes?

The morning was quite chilly -8C so there was this incredible hoar frost. The rush was trying to find the birds with the frost still around, because it was warming up fast. Here is my Fist Western Meadowlark of the year, what a beautiful vocal performance!

I actually found the Lark when I was trying to get my first shots of this Redwinged Blackbird.

When I got out of the truck to get the Blackbird, and before I saw the Meadowlark, this pair of Killdeer popped up and decided to provide a photo opp. These birds are usually much more difficult to get close to, spring is definitely in the air!

There was a schwack of other birds out today as well; 1000's of starlings, Redwing Blackbirds, Robins, Redtail hawks, a couple of Northern Harriers, Roughies, and a pair of Prairie Falcons. So for an unplanned outing a lot of opportunity. Happy Easter everyone!

Turbo