Golden Pond Revealed at Golden Hour

Shortly after 6 AM yesterday morning, I came to Brightwood Park.  The rising sun sprayed golden light into the pond.  The sky and the clouds were like a kaleidoscope.  You have to keep watching to appreciate the rapidly changing patterns.  


A duck family had already woken up and started its morning exercise.  The seven chicks are now down to five.  I have reason to believe two along with other disappearing ducks were taken into the water by turtles.  In the past few days I heard several times of ducks screaming followed by a sudden silence.


I was joined by Claudia Cuca for an adventure walk.  While we passed the bridge and exchanged our concerns about the expanding green and oily film (of algae?) in the large pond (feeling like someone kept pouring greening paint into the water), a bright spot appeared.  It was a beautiful bird standing on a tree branch a  distance away, combing its feathers and showing off its beautiful tail.  At first look we thought it was a blue jay.  With Caludia using her binoculars and me zooming my camera, we concluded it was not a blue jay but a male belted kingfisher.  A female one would have had a colored "belt" on the belly.  

As I shared before, Brightwood Park is a place of many wonders.  It is "like a box of chocolates".  "You never know what you are going to get" (borrowing the line from the movie "Forrest Gump").  Everytime I come to the park, the box is never empty and the chocolates are always wonderful and tasty.