From Winter to Spring

When we left Ann Arbor, everything was snow-covered.
West Lafayette was cold, but no snow, and the trees were bare.
We were very cold when birdwatching at Celery Bog.
Len and Elaine went down to the Wabash River and saw this eagle
while I was huddling by the fireplace.

As we drove towards St.Louis from Indiana, we started
to see a little bit of light green in the fields and on highway medians.
In St.Louis a few early trees and daffodils were in bloom,
including Jay and Ruby's star magnolia shown here. 

Tonight we are in Oklahoma City. As we left Missouri on highway 44 this morning,
the light greens turned to bright greens and we started to see trees with tiny leaves and
some in full bloom, like this one in a shopping center near where we ate dinner.

Besides birdwatching in West Lafayette, we went to two sanctuaries on
the Mississippi near St.Louis.

We were impressed by the bird blind that looked like a big sculpture.

What you can see from inside the blind.

The blind from outside. The ponds are controlled by levees, and invite both
winter migrants (which left a few weeks ago, alas) and summer resident birds.
We just saw a few, though quite nice ones.

Bridge over the Mississippi from the Riverlands Sanctuary.

Confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. I remember going near
here when I was a child, but it was all farmers' fields and you couldn't
get to the actual point from which we observed this. It was great!

Birds in the ponds of the Missouri Bottoms Conservation area,
which includes the south-west point at the confluence.
Correction: should be Columbia Bottoms Conservation area.