First week in January

This post begins with shots I took on a Sunday walk, January 3, 2016.



I was surprised to see a Great Blue heron on the piling at Shelley Lake since the piling is usually reserved for cormorants alone.



The herons are usually at other parts of the lake and the cormorants usually have the old piling to themselves.



Above the gulls that always arrive in the winter are sharing the sandbar with a gaggle of cormorants.



Until last year I usually only saw a handful of cormorants, always on the piling.



Last year a large cormorant convention arrived in the fall and apparently has done the same this year.



Now that Bill has retired and bought a farm house in the country we don't walk at Shelley Lake as much on the weekends.



The Fall's Lake parks and trails are in between where I live (same house we bought together when we were married) and the country place where he lives now.



It has been fun meeting at different preserves and places that are part of the Fall's Lake land on weekends for a change. My last post included some shots I took on the way to Bill's house for Christmas which showed the barns and country roads. Until he retired he was living in a townhouse near me which was convenient but I'm glad he has a place for a garden now and it's less than an hour from where I live. The places we usually meet to walk now are only 20 minutes from my house which works well for both of us.



I was glad Bill suggested walking at Shelley Lake (in my neighborhood) on the first Sunday in January.



Most years we walk at Shelley Lake on New Year's day but this year it was too wet to walk on New Year's day. 



The bird shots are ones I took on January 6, 2016 when I had car trouble and worked from home.



Although I don't work from home all the time like I did for well over 10 years I'm still set up for it.



It's nice that when I have car trouble or if we have bad weather I can always work from home if necessary.