Mosaic Monday #128: Montana Spring

April in Montana is a trickster.  One day the warmth of spring sunlight on my face spreads hope and tranquility through my entire being.  The next day?  Snow, and a vicious wind tosses branches against the windows like a petulant child.  But the snow doesn't last, and all around are signs that winter is losing its grip to spring.  At the farm of Dear Neighbor Friend, the evidence takes the form of fuzzy chicks and kids teetering on brand-new legs.

DNF's grandchildren have a ring-side seat to the miracle of birth.  They quickly bond with the animals and take caring for them very seriously.  But life can be closer to death than we like, and occasionally the family must cope with the loss of an animal.  This week, one of the recently born kids passed shortly after birth.  Below you can see the remaining kid, Amelia, using her mama as a jungle gym.

Over the hill at my house, I found this freshly dug hole, and trained the trail camera there to determine the culprit.  A bunny!

Shortly after these pictures were taken, the Moultrie trail cam acted up again, and Spousal Unit bought a replacement, a Stealth trail cam at Cabela's (the one we truly want is on back order until May.)  I placed it by the lake at the bottom of our property, in the hopes of capturing eagle photos.  (In my February 7, 2021 post, I wrote about golden and bald eagles feasting on fish, and I speculated about a lake awash with dead fish as the ice melted.)  It began to appear that theory might prove true - sometimes we observed as many as ten eagles at a time on the thin edges of the ice.  The three pictures below were taken with my phone through my spotting scope.  Not great quality, but you can count as many as 3 goldens and 1 bald in one of the photos.

Unfortunately, the camera did not catch any good photos of the eagles.  By mid-month, the lake was clear of ice and I relocated the trail cam to the beaver dam, anticipating that this clever engineer would begin to repair winter's damage.   Eureka!!!

 

As the ice disappeared, other water animals have arrived - cranes, Canada geese, and mallards.

I was not familiar with the ducks below - I am sure my professional birders will tell me if Ring-Necked Duck is the incorrect identification.

As you can see in the photo above, we had some snow on the 18th - the storm I mentioned at the outset with the ferocious winds.  It was enough to raise whitecaps on the lake.

I imagine the duck in the picture below was ready to pick up its wings and return south!!!

But never fear, wait a few days, and you will be rewarded with blue skies and calm waters once again!

Mosaic Monday

Welcome to Mosaic Monday, a weekly meme where we get together to share our photo mosaics and collages.

Please include at least one photo mosaic/collage in your post.

The link will be open from 1 p.m. Sunday until 11 p.m. Tuesday (U.S. Mountain time).

Remember to add the link to your Mosaic Monday post and not the one to your blog.

Please link back to this post so that your readers will be able to visit and enjoy more wonderful mosaics; taking the MM blog button from my sidebar is an easy way to link back.

As host I will visit every participant and leave a comment so that you know I stopped by.

Please try and visit as many other blogs as you can, especially those that join in later, so that everyone's creativity can be appreciated fully.

Thank you for joining in today and sharing your mosaics with us. 

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