sounds

there are lots of heron around and this is by far not the best picture. What I found interesting here is that the bird is standing on the ice so that it can get closer to the deep water, where the bigger fish live. 

This flicker is hunting for something in the crook of this cottonwood. It actually appeared to be drinking something, and also poking around for some sort of insect. Flickers and woodpeckers look similiar and both use stiff tail feathers to brace against a tree while perching vertically, same as a lumberjack climbing a pole. Many animals in similiar ecological niches look the same (termed convergent evolution).

Of course, woodpeckers specialize in older trees and can open up cavities in heartwood to get at wood beetle grubs. Flickers on the other hand, are more adept at tweezing resting moths from cracks in the outer bark of mature, living trees.

While it may be impossible for us to notice, there is a great change already happening all around us as various insects are noticing the warmer diurnal temperatures and hatching. In the wild, gnats and March flies are hatching and other insects are migrating into the area.

Physella acuta snails in the mud are laying gelatinous egg masses. In the middle of this picture, those clear blobs are the transparent shells of a new generation of "pond snail", each about the size of a comma. Most will become fish and duck food.

Humans are also doing our part for the environment. That picture of a moth above, is identified as a clothes moth. The adult hatched after living for several months as a caterpillar in a wooly, cottony, or otherwise organic item of clothing....in a warm human house.

The birds, of course, are well aware of the emerging insects. This picture shows a sparrow getting a drink of water on a perching stick, but it is also ambushing and snatching insects as they emerge from the mud, likely gnats and mosquitos. The sparrow lives here year round, by changing its diet based on what is available; seeds, fruits (from junipers and oliver trees), insects, whatever, even meat (rarely). you can often see them stealing ground beef from the carnivores at the Biopark.

Many birds prefer to migrate to follow their preferred foods. The "robins", geese, and cranes will be leaving soon to head back north. Many looking for areas of black mud, which sustains so many of our species on this planet, but is so hated by us hairless apes.