Thanksgiving Week - Friday: Family

I started this week of Thanksgiving with family memories of mini-golf in Kansas City, Gateway Arch and City Museum in St Louis but now turn to other items of gratitude. The move last August to Kansas City was tough, as we left behind wonderful friends in Winona and moved further away from extended family. Family is very important to us and we make the one-way 9+ hour drive quite often.

We were in central Minnesota two weeks ago and were able to spend time with my sister and her family.  Below are three photos from the weekend.

I believe the toy plane crashed into the photographers head here, getting a reaction from all but Danielle and grandparents. 

Z man may have his work cut out for him as the only grandson.

Too often we forget to take family portraits, but luckily we had everything set up and a few willing volunteers.

As we talked to our parents today, I was reminded there are positives with being in Kansas City that offset the negative of missing family at the great distance.

Today's high was 67, and might have been one of a few in which you could not fly a kite.  We tried anyways.

We spent over an hour playing at the Wyandotte County Lake Park.  The item in the video below was vicious, and disorientated everyone quickly.  We perhaps played too long, as Danielle (Seen here on another VIDEO) was still feeling the effects an hour later.  The Lake has also hosted some amazing birds, but a quick scan tonight only revealed expected species.

 

My best digi-scoping picture to date, it doesn't really compare to my best photo from today however with the DSLR.

Birding with Danielle

I've heard "the best plans are the ones that don't happen sometimes". Today might fit that sentiment, as we scrapped our plans and made an impromptu birding trip to Wyandotte County Lake. Michaela didn't want to come with, allowing Danielle and I to search for previously reported Spotted Towhee and Black Duck.

A quick stop at a hardware store now allows us to switch harnesses quickly between binoculars, giving Danielle my new pair. She was great at the Wyandotte Lake library spotting birds in flight and focusing on them with her binoculars. She described them and guessed their names. She liked the birds with the extra crest: Tufted Titmouse, Cedar Waxwing, and Northern Cardinals. We missed the Towhee but kept on scanning for the duck. Lake fog made it quite challenging.

On the drive Danielle watched frozen, as Michaela has grown tired of it Danielle waited until she was alone to watch it one more time. After our initial stop and back in the car Danielle giggled "This is the best part". She was singing, but quieted down as I turned on the camera.

We found a pullout to scope the lake, with one catching our attention. Danielle guessed, guessed some more, and guessed again but could not come up Horned Grebe. I was thoroughly impressed with her diligence of describing the bird, patience and guessing almost every waterfowl name she could remember. We took pictures through the scope to share with home, but our attempts were not very successful (Good luck identifying on these two pictures!). Michaela and Danielle tried this a month ago in better light with better pictures of a White Pelican and Bald Eagle. Digiscoping remains a challenge as I try to get documentation shots at longer distances even with my proclivity for good camera settings.

The rain started shortly after with a mist, then a drizzle, and eventual downpour. Danielle decided to stay in the car as we stopped a couple more times and scoped for the Black Duck. After finding it we headed home in the rain. Here is the eBird list of all waterfowl and birds seen today.