A trip to Crex & a visit from Mr. Bear

I drove to Luck today to pick up a desk that I had bought at a garage sale on Friday.  I had a fun lunch with Angie & Aaron and family and then Emily went with me to help load up the desk.  More about the desk later.

After a quick stop at Lois's and a visit with Stella, Ruby and Jens, I took Emily back home and headed North to Grantsburg for a Crex Meadows photo visit.

Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate.  

Just about the time I got out on Phantom Lake Road, the rain started.

I was watching (and trying unsuccessfully to photograph) a loon and two chicks out on the water.

The distance, the poor light and the rain made getting a photo impossible for me.

See....the chicks were pretty far away, but already they are getting big.

After watching a bit and snapping a few photos (to be deleted later) I looked back up at the road.

MUCH TO MY SURPRISE, 

a fawn was romping down the road headed right for my car.

The following pictures were taken through the windshield and rain and wipers.

You get the idea, what a treat to see, his legs were a-flying.

He got close enough that I was worried he might run right into the car,

but at the last minute, he dove off the road into the ditch.

What a fun sight to see.

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I was trying to get a good shot of my favorite, the red winged blackbird.

I love their song, but black is hard to photograph in the dim light.

Then it really started to rain hard, so I left Crex.

The roads are mostly gravel and I didn't want to push my luck out there.

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On the way back to Rice Lake I drove through some really hard rain,

the kind you keep thinking you should pull over but don't want to in case someone behind you would not see you and slam into you.

Anyway, I made it back to Rice Lake safely and it had stopped raining.

So, I took a drive past Rice Lake.

I saw on Facebook that a bird watcher had seen a yellow headed black bird in a marsh on the NW side of the lake, so I drove over there to see what I would see.

But this goose saw me, and she wasn't too excited to see me!

She and her gosling were having a snack.

Everybody was wet but nobody seemed to mind.

I'm not sure if these goslings are cute at this stage.

 As I drove along the lake, the rain picked up.

Good weather for ducks, this Mallard drake seemed unbothered 

The mallards on the lake were busy feeding in between the rain drops.

This one needs a caption....

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I got home at about 6pm and had been gone since about noon.

While I was out...

a bear had visited the front deck 

and tipped over the feeder stand and ripped down the finch feeder sack.

If only the cats could tell me all about it, the front shade was up, so they had the best seats in the house to watch the bear snack on seeds.

I checked the trail cam 

and did not have any pictures of bears in the backyard 

and the backyard feeders were upright.

It is bad that they come during the day,

and it is bad that they come on a day when I am not home to take their pictures.

All feeders are in for the night!

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