I went down to the ponds at sunrise, hoping to find Cedar Waxwings chasing bugs over the river, where they like to occasionally rest on the footbridge.

I did see some Waxwings flying over the river, but they weren't resting on the bridge. I was distracted by a calling Belted Kingfisher, who landed on a dead log on the riverbank. I hadn't yet got the chance at a decent Kingfisher photo, so I headed down off the footbridge to try to get a shot of it.

The kingfisher was gone by the time I got down to its perch, and after waiting a while there it never returned.

I decided to go check out the ponds to see what was there. On the way there, I saw a hawk up in a tree. It flew off before I got close, but it was a Red-shouldered Hawk, one with pretty light colored feathers on the head. Soon after, I peered down into a pond area and saw the Kingfisher! It was on a great perch for photos. The light wasn't very strong, but I took a lot of shots and got a few decent ones. I was amazed at how she sat on her perch for a while, apparently looking closely at the water, then kind of flicked her head around suddenly, and took off. She returned to the perch two seconds later with a fish. It was incredible how quickly and effortlessly she grabbed that fish.

After checking out some brown ducks in the ponds (mostly Mallards) I headed back to the footbridge to see if the Waxwings were resting on the footbrige.

They were! Again, the light wasn't great (I think I was out too early on a cloudy morning) but I got some shots when a Waxwing happened to land on the handrail in a ray of sunshine.

These photos are © 2022 Phil Thompson, all rights reserved.

My "birds in review" collages can be found here.