Wetlands Birding, Redux

Went back to the wetlands early this morning to catch birds at breakfast. Neighbor T came along, as she had never been there.  I got to add a few more birds to my life list, and can now name the turtle I saw on Friday. T is a big reptile lover, and she identified them as red-eared sliders. There were quite a few out sunbathing today. Today's birds included tentative identifications of a ring-necked duck, blue-winged teal, and cinnamon teal, but I'm not confident on my ids of these three at all. But I've been able to definitely add the northern shoveler, Abert's towhee, pie-billed grebe with its black ring around the bill, great egret, and the northern rough-winged swallow.  I used to see hundreds of cattle egret in Belize, so I was happy to officially see their big cousin.We also saw a couple of great blue herons, old friends of mine from Belize.

But the highlight of the day was seeing a mama great horned owl and her two babies, less than six months old, sitting only about 20 ft overhead. Herewith: