Potter's Marsh

First of all, we had some warm days this week and the snow is almost completely gone from just about everywhere in town - including the backyard.  I don't think Ripley's seen grass in almost six months and this is how he feels about being able to play in the yard again:

Sorry...some of that was dog porn.  Any of you who have ever met Ripley have already seen his junk, so this is nothing new.  

Today is Mother's Day!! Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there, especially mine, who is awesome!  Since I'm only the mother of fur babies, today was just another Sunday to me, but we did go on a little in-town adventure to Potter's Marsh to look for all the birds coming in to town.  

Potter's Marsh is right on the highway on the south end of town as you enter into the Turnagain Arm area heading towards Girdwood, Portage, the Kenai Peninsula, and other points east/south.  It's also conveniently located right across the highway from the shooting range...because migratory birds are comforted by the dolcent tones of rifle fire. 

The scenery is fairly amazing, as is pretty much all the scenery in Anchorage.  Also they have these little raised boardwalks around the marsh to help with bird viewing.

We saw a lot of ducks, which were hard to photograph because they blended in so well, but we did find some absolutely beautiful tree swallows flying around.  Some even posed for us!

Can you see her swooping around?

The birds were all super active around the boardwalks because they had mounted all of these birdhouses for them on the support pillars.  There were a TON of swallows out and about.

Check out the friendly ones -

Checking out the scenery...

They even let us get really close to them:

Some of the birds we saw were babies and still had their downy feathers:

This is one of my favorite pictures of today.  Hello!

The primary goal of the little in-town excursion was to look for sandhill cranes.  A week or so ago, I had listened to a really interesting radio show about cranes (yes, I'm 80 years old) and got excited to maybe take a trip up to the interior to go see them this summer, since the biologist on the radio show said they go up there all summer and generally miss the Anchorage area.  Then yesterday, I was out in the yard and one buzzed our house! I really wanted to try to see one up close and personal, and I figured Potter's Marsh would be the best place to go.  The best part is we actually saw a few! 

We only saw them flying and the picture above is zoomed in about 5,000%, but we SAW THEM.  Here's what they look like when they aren't flying several hundred feet above the ground:

I obviously did not take this picture.

It was a great outing.  I'm excited to visit in different seasons and see what kinds of birds we can find.

Happy Mother's Day again!!