Saturday's Critters # 476

Welcome to Saturday's Critters!

Hello and happy Saturday!

 If you love all God's creatures like I do and also like to blog about them and take critter photos this is where you can share your critter post. Link up your post and share your critters, join in with my critter party ! You can share any kind of critters the real ones, pretend ones, statues and paintings, a new or old post!

These photos and birds are from my back yard and our nearby lake/reservoir. Hubby and I are happy that the lake is just a walking distance from our home.

We live near the Prettyboy Reservoir which is one of three reservoirs owned by Baltimore City. I recently posted about the ducks seen at the Loch Raven Reservoir which is one of the three reservoirs, Liberty Reservoir is the third reservoir. Baltimore City and five surrounding counties have plenty of drinking water. 

1. Jan 7th, in the back yard, hubby and I were watching a large group of Dark-eyed Juncos pecking away at the ground, two Northern Flickers joined the Junco group.  Photos were taken through the windows.  Click on images for better viewing.

2. The female is brownish-gray in color and has the pink bill and the white in the tail area. 

3. The male Dark-eyed Junco is a dark grey with a pink bill and white outer tail feathers which show more while they are in flight.

4. Jan 7th, the Northern Flicker pecking away at the ground. Not sure if these birds were finding seeds or bugs on the ground. 

5. Jan 7th, our walk to the lake, we saw groups here and there of the male and female Common Mergansers.  Of course most were across the lake, so I had to zoom in to get a closer look. 

6. Below the male with the green head is with a group of female Common Mergansers. 

7. Taking off, these Common Mergansers would fly from one end of the lake to the other end.  

8. Two female Common Mergansers. They started off close to us near the lake shore, but quickly swam to the other side of the lake. 

 

9. The sunlight on the male Common Merganser. He is beautiful, also known as a Goosander. They are considered a seaduck, found in rivers and lakes. 

10.  Jan 7th, a view of our Prettyboy Reservoir. If we did not look closely we would have missed seeing the Mergansers. At times they dive and disappear, reappearing in a different spot.  

11.  Jan 9th, On the NCR trail, hubby and I walked a few miles on the bike trail. A chilly day so it was a brisk walk. I have a few scenes and some Eastern Bluebirds taken from the trail. 

12. Jan 11th , after seeing beautiful photos of a Golden Eagle on the Maryland Birders facebook page, the Golden Eagle was being seen at our lake since early January. Hubby and I decided to take a chance and see if the Golden Eagle was still there, of course we missed it again. We did see more Common Mergansers, Cooper's Hawk, Vultures and a Bald Eagle. 

Thank you for sharing your critters and post!

Thanks to all my visitors and for your past and present comments. Stop back to see any replies to your comments. I appreciate everyone who loves and respects wildlife. Thank you for linking up a critter post.

Here is my linky:

I am also linking up to Anni's blog party found here I'd Rather B Birding   Anni always has some beautiful birds to be seen on her blog, check it out! Also, I am also linking up to Heidrun's Mosaic Monday  I hope you can stop by and visit Heidrun and check out the Mosaic Monday post.