Tuesday was a frosty 22ºF morning and there was still sparkling frost on the interpretive sign when we left the refuge at 7:30am although the sun was well up by then. We felt very lucky that we'd seen the cranes and also had been able to drive the looIt was the start of a beautiful day.

To clarify, may I also use a third font for my journaling?

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A bit political, but I love the manbird's dismay at the puppet (with money) being rewarded. Putin's puppet.

There were more cranes on the big lake than on our other visits, but none on the smaller lake on the south end of the refuge. It was dark and hard to tell, but close to a thousand before lift off. I counted fifty on the right edge of my photo, and needed three shots to cover the scene.

There are no referees with whistles. And they didn't all lift off at the exact same moment. I took photos in that low light, 1/2 hr. before sunrise, of a bit of the liftoff. I guessed that they had some sort of sense of how far away others were, and knew when there was space for their 6-foot...

We had some rain and it was gentle. The grass would welcome it, having turned almost green. And then it snowed. I loved how it slowly covered the grass. We got just over an inch, and it was pretty without the threat of cold fingers and feet and it would soon be gone. It was the perfect spring snow.

I wanted to get them in front of the bright pink part of the cloud, but I wasn't quite fast enough. But I will remember for a long time, where I was standing, looking north and turned to see the cranes to the south, in front of my favorite, a sky-blue pink cloud.

Inspired by Jenn's newest kit, Seeds of Love.

With more energy than on earlier trips, I was glad I could go around the loop a second time. After sunrise there are very few cranes remaining, but I liked seeing lone birds in daylight a lot. This was our last day on this trip, but I thought on another trip I might just go for a later start,

At 6:20am it was too dark to see the birds taking off, but we could hear them. I knew that new AI photo software was coming, so I went ahead and made photos and kept them although we normally would have rejected them. I was surprised that the sun already colored the water.

In any large group, there were some smaller birds. Often just one or two young birds with two adults. They stay with their parents through their first winter, learning vital survival skills and migration routes. They usually separate from their parents before the next breeding season.

We liked to watch smaller groups of birds. We knew they weren't ready to leave, but were they deciding when to leave or about which direction they'd take. There were fields of grain in all directions. Nearby farms had contracts to grow barley just to feed these important birds.

Inspired by Jenn's new papers and finally some warm sunny days after the big snow.

Some visitors don't actually visit the refuge, but watch the birds from one of two parking areas south of the refuge. Some set up tripods and use long lenses, and hope for a gorgeous sunrise photo with the cranes flying in front of it. We don't work so hard, but sometimes get lucky.

I watched the smallest duck, and even cuter than the ruddy duck, for quite a while. He was preening and showing off for his girl, and she stayed close. It took him a long time to let me get a portrait, but was fun to watch part of his courting ritual.

I had to rest, and focus on everything to lower my stress. I felt ok, just tired. I learned that my body was upset because of asthma, which I didn't understand at all. My BP was below 90/60 so that had nothing to do with it. I mostly distracted myself with the art supplies on my desk.

It was a ritual for me, to stop everything and take at least one photo of sunrise if there was one, and I used my phone for that because I loved the way it fixed the colors. It had a wider lens, too, so I took a scenic and it was wall to wall birds in the sky. I cropped it to fit my frame.

Heavy snow started as we finished packing, and we ran through squalls and slow spots all the way home. We had snow at home but didn't have to shovel . We were both crazy tired, and already looking forward to the redwing and yellow-headed blackbirds we'd see in just a few weeks.

I was slow in getting started on this, but now I know a whole new genre and thinking of A to Z! :p