Barr Lake (mostly Dry)

We headed up to Barr Lake State Park yesterday looking for migrating Snow Geese and other water birds. While we definitely saw a lot of birds, the day turned out to be more about photographing the unique landscape of the dry lakebed and the dead red leaves of the dry water-plants.

The lake was just a pond with water levels very low.

I suspect that the water was low due to construction on the Denver-Hudson Canel which was also mostly dry and full of earth movers.

You can see the construction equipment hidden in the trees. Luckily they were quite while we were there.

I was really enjoying the birds set in the context of the skeletal trees and red beach.

There were a lot of raptors! We started with Great Horned Owls before daybreak (but it was too dark too take pictures) then saw over a dozen different hawks and a few eagles. That includes this Red Tailed Hawk and Bald Eagle, both with fish!

I was experimenting with using a slow shutter to try to capture the feeling of motion with the large flocks of birds. These were mostly Canada Geese but there were a wide variety of ducks mixed in including some very distinct Western Grebes. There was also the usual Mallards, Mergansers and some Red Heads. Oh, and a few pelecans.

Canada Goose on the beach with a bright white sky reflected behind it in the water.

Canada Geese flying in a line

Some of my favorite shots from the day were these more minimal goose shots.

Barr Lake Dam from the bottom of the dry lake.

Sun Rise over the dry lake bed.

Close up of the dry red leaves covering the perimeter of the lake.

Classic view of the mountains beyond Barr Lake.