Too far south...

This morning the girls and I bundled up to go on a bird hike, a very special, first annual Kids' Christmas Bird Count at the Mitchell Lake Audubon Center in San Antonio. We love Mitchell Lake, and we love our birding friends who lead the Young Birder's Club of San Antonio who were co-hosting the event. I am not the best birder, my identification skills are quite lacking, but what I lack in precision I try to make up for in enthusiasm and photojournalism.

I really could say a lot about our bird walk this morning, the weather was lovely, just chilly enough to be comfortable in a few layers but not cold. The company was jovial and eager to identify and count birds, and laugh at the number of Northern Cardinals and Northern Mockingbirds strutting in front of us to make sure and be noticed. But the minute we got the phone call that the Long-eared Owl had been spotted, the rest of the morning's events were trumped by this special, and quite unusual sighting (this owl doesn't usually come below Plano, so his being in San Antonio is causing quite a stir in the bird world). And he was a very photogenic owl too. :)

And these two little White Crowned Sparrows just posed so beautifully, I couldn't resist but share the shot I got of them before they flew away.

There were quite a few more birds this morning, but I haven't had time to cull through my photos. I was dying to see the pictures of the Long-eared Owl, so I got those up, and I just had to share!