Chilly Day at the Park

I'm kinda mad about this. We saw a new kind of bird at the park and I'm pretty happy with the pictures. I'm not happy that I'm still unable to get PhotoShop running on my Vista computer and I don't have the editing tools to get these pictures looking the way I'd like. My exposure is a little off, so I'm not thrilled with the pictures, but the white chests of these ducks are not blown out, they just look that way. There's recoverable detail in the white feathers that I can't bring out with what I've got. Arrgh! Ok, anyway....

There were several migratory Northern Shovelers who decided to stop at the park for us. How cool! I have long wanted to see something other than the Mallards that you can find anywhere and yesterday was our day. Lookit the beaks on these guys! I wonder why they're called "Shovelers"?









Just for fun, here's the dog. "My nickname is 'Spitty'!!" I believe dogs actually see birds headless, plucked, basted and running around wearing those little paper booties, just like in the cartoons.