Drops of Beauty #145

October 27, 2023

“When life throws you a rainy day, play in the puddles.” - Winnie the Pooh (A.A. Milne)

“Raindrops on…” well, fall leaves. It’s been a rainy week here, probably more rain than we’ve had in months, all at once. I’m missing my morning nature walks and when I get back to them it will be in the below-freezing cold that’s arriving this weekend. I just hope some birds arrive with the cold!

Meanwhile, the incoming clouds made for some amazing clouds at sunrise just before the rain started:

Looking north near sunrise on October 23, 2023

Someone was already getting some very purple rain.

I see happy people in the clouds, how about you?

Then the clouds started to slide over the eastern horizon as the sun rose. Lots of wind, lots of gulls and geese.

And there were plenty of birds before the rains came:

I can never get enough of that dive position. It looks so fun!

Another osprey diving for fish - this time I caught those talons just before he went in the water!

No fish this time, but he did catch one (further away from me) a few minutes later.

There were thousands of Franklin’s gulls. I have no idea how to really estimate a flock this large but one day I thought there easily could have been more than 10,000.

I love to watch them fly in their long, horizontal swirls and then the will circle into a vertical spiral. (Yes, there are videos coming, it just takes me a long time to do videos!)

Little zig zags in the sky.

So lovely up close.

Hundreds of gulls looked like snowflakes against the clouds with the rising sun shining on them. Turned out to be harder to capture in a photo than I imagined.

Took this monarch photo a couple weeks ago but this afternoon I had one float by me on the wind. Hope it stays ahead of that cold front!

The leaves are really turning now. Hoping the winds don’t down them all before I get more photos!

Take care friends, whatever your weekend has in store. When it feels overwhelming, don’t forget to look at the trees, the leaves, the sky, the grass or whatever bit of nature you can find.