What a difference a day makes.....in January!!!!!

I was on the internet when I saw that the Snowy Owl had been seen in the Washington Court House area near Home Depot. I text my sister and wanted to know if she wanted to hunting for the Snowy Owl? Off we went and this is what we found.......

Not the Snowy Owl...but probably a white bag that wished it was a Snowy Owl....so disappointed that we didn't find the Snowy Owl that we decided to head back home and visit a couple of our favorite places.

It was a beautiful day!  Blue skies, sunny and warm (for January). On our drive to Washington Court House and back, we saw over 15 hawks, 10 Vultures, a couple of Horned Larks. That was the most Hawks we have ever seen on one outing.  This Hawk was nice enough to let me get a couple of pictures of him.

We arrived at Charlie's Pond and it looked very quiet.  We continued on down the road.....getting a little depressed that there wasn't any activity...when...all of a sudden!!!! My sister said, " I think I see Sand Hill Cranes!!! "  So we drove on down the road to get a little closer and there they were.

Eating in the corn field.  A couple raised up and looked at us. (notice something in the brush behind them)

 They watched us for a while and realized we weren't coming any closer.  We sat in our car for a while watching them through our binoculars. They went back to eating.
(again notice the head in the brush behind the cranes)

 Then this helicopter flew over from the airport near by...They all raised their heads up then.

In this picture, you can see that there were deer in the brush.  They kept peeking out, to check on what was going on..

 We saw an American Kestrel flying around....we watched him for a while.

Then in another field we saw a group of Deer and the minuet we stopped our car, they took off running across the railroad tracks.  These two stopped to look back to see what we were doing...

One thing about Charlie's Pond is that you can't leave the roadway.  To go on the property you need permission from the owners.  But there isn't much traffic, so stopping for a short time to view with binoculars doesn't bother anyone.

Our next stop was Canal Road.  The Canal was very full and when we got to the falls...There were falls!

I was so thrilled...it has been over a year since the falls had enough water.

 The sound and the sparkling of the water was so soothing.

We decided to walk over to see how full the Scioto River was....

It was very full and looked like it had gone over the banks and flooded the area.

The Towpath trail was blocked and we couldn't walk very far on it..

This area still has snow and ice....doesn't get much sun here.

This is one of the flower beds that were made back in the 30's when this area was a park...

This rock looked like the flood water had moved it ....notice the interesting markings on it.....

The pond was full and looked like there had been some trauma to it.

The muskrat homes that were there the last time we visited were gone and so were the birdhouses that were around the pond.

We did see Chickadees, Titmouse, Nuthatch, and a couple of Brown Creepers.  They all seemed as interested in us as we were in them.

Well it was time to head home.....I will be so glad when the days are longer....More time to visit my favorite places..... ;)

And today, it was cold, winter weather again...January weather! Even some snow....sure glad we went out yesterday.

Till next time....Happy Birding!!!!