The ice is beginning to come off the ponds.

Female goldeneye duck on Knox Mountain Pond in Kelowna - the ice is starting to melt.

There is a pond about 2 km away from where I live.  It is on Knox Mountain; there is a modest gain in elevation when walking there.  It is usually frozen over at this time of year, but with the warm, snowless winter we have had, what little ice there is has begun to disappear.

It hasn't been exactly warm.  It was 5° C in the afternoon today, on the 7th of February; it hasn't been below zero for a few weeks.  The odd thing is that it has been freezing back east - Lake Erie has almost completely frozen over.  Not that I am complaining.  It has been nice to go walking without studs attached to the bottom of my boots.

Even though spring seems to be in the air, there is little evidence of it regarding migrating birds.  goldeneye ducks and mallards have been overwintering here by the bucketful.  They have been staying along the creeks and rivers here, but are starting to move inland as the lakes and ponds become available.  Robins have returned as well, I saw a tree today with half a dozen roosting in it.  But there are no red-winged blackbirds, one of the bird species I associate with the coming of spring.

I took the above photo today, about two hours ago.  It has been cloudy, so the light wasn't great.  I photographed this with my D500 and 500 mm Nikkor PF prime lens.  Camera settings were ISO 800, SS 1/500th, aperture f/5.6.  I liked the fact that the duck had just been feeding on pond vegetation - I usually don't get them with any food showing.  There were no males present, although she had a few mallards present for company.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com

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