Great Blue Heron

It's not the best picture quality, since it's been taken with my cell phone but that grey spot in the middle of the picture is a Great Blue Heron.

I saw him today on my ride around the Walnut Creek Lake in Bellevue. There is a walking/bike path around the lake and with the almost finished connection of 96th street to 370, you can reach it all the way, without spending too much time on actual roads. I like to stay out of traffic:)

I felt surprisingly good today for having had a race yesterday, that was longer than usual. They had added an extra lap for the beginners.

Anyway, I saw that Heron and I have been seeing so many birds on my rides and never commented on that. Not many of you know that I like to watch birds. I feed them all year at the house and I have books to look them up to educate myself. It's amazing how many feathered beauties we have here in Nebraska.

I always get excited when I see a Meadowlark because the Western Meadowlark is the State Bird of Nebraska. Keep your eyes peeled on your next ride. You will see them. They are easy to see, when they fly, because of their yellow "bottom".

The other night, I had to break for two Canadian Geese on the Keystone. They were hanging out there and in no hurry to get off the trail...

The funniest bike-bird encounter for me was my first ever meeting with a wild turkey, shortly after we moved here. (We don't have wild turkeys in Germany)

Martin and I went riding at Lake Manawa and I was leading. (We went actually backwards, because at the time, we didn't know any better, like I said, we had just gotten here, so it must have been sometime late 2003). Coming around a corner in the "open" field, that is actually so overgrown that you can't see over the trail was a turkey standing on the trail. I startled it and it jumped up, which scared the shit out of me and Martin said that I jumped at least as high as the turkey:D

Back in Germany, I always had a hawk feather on my helmet. It was kind of like a lucky charm. Unfortunately, one day it broke off and I haven't found a good feather to replace it. I keep finding turkey feathers, but somehow, I don't think that those would make me faster...