River Walk

My new pup Quill and I have been spending our lunch time walking along the Yellowstone River for the past couple of weeks. Quill gets his mid-day meal and a good walk, and I get a few minutes of away-from-the-desk therapy. We wander along the bank of the river, or through the Cottonwoods along the trails of a park near my office looking for whatever crosses our path. Sometimes it is beautiful patterns in the ice along the river, other times it is just a few moments of new experiences for a puppy. Most of our short journeys have been relatively devoid of birds except for the usual Common Goldeneyes on the river and an occasional Bald Eagle cruising along the channel. However last week we managed to find ourselves in the middle of a small flock of Black-capped Chickadees, a Brown Creeper, and a White-breasted Nuthatch. I always enjoy watching creepers and nuthatches work their way up and down tree trunks, prying little insects out from the cracks and crevices of the bark. They are always a challenge to photograph because most of the time you see only the back of the bird as they hunt the bark for food.

 Sometimes you can catch them working the tree where you can see them better.

A couple of quick little White-breasted Nuthatch calls on my phone brought the nuthatch down to check me out.

Quill enjoys all of it.

River Ice II

Another walk along the Yellowstone and more photos of ice patterns.

River Ice

A recent cold snap across the northern Great Plains turned our rather warm Fall on it's head and the Yellowstone River is now sending large ice pans downstream. The patterns in the ice on the side channels always catch my eye.

Frost Flowers

This morning I found flowers blooming in the early parts of February while I was on my walk along the river.

Prairie Ice

This weekend we took a walk along the Yellowstone River at a place known as Two Moon Park. This is a county park in the floodplain below rather steep bluffs somewhat close to our house. There are seeps and channels that have open water all year but the main portion of the river has migrated away from the park, leaving the old riverbed as an overflow side channel that constrains the established trails away from the new main river channel. There is limited flow in the channel and it tends to freeze with some very interesting patterns in the ice. 

Yellowstone River Edge Ice