They had a squirrel with a messed up tail.

And regular squirrels with delicious nuts.

Denver was an awesome city to visit, but they have very few birds.  The most abundant bird was the Canada Goose.

I was trying to imagine them into Cackling Geese so I could have a life bird, but they’re just Canada Geese.  His neck seemed fairly short, though.  But Cackling Geese aren’t on the range map for Colorado.

One of the geese was acting as a lookout.  He perceived an invisible line that we couldn’t cross.  When you stepped slightly beyond the line, he would start honking.

There were also gulls on the lake.

And a cormorant, probably a Double Crested Cormorant.  Sadly the birding in this area is so poor that people visit the lake just to see the cormorants.

Denver also has a ton of flickers, but I’ve talked about those too recently so I’ll save those pictures for later.

Spring was in full swing last week.  The Red-Winged Blackbirds were singing, the Black-Billed Magpies were calling and the Canada Geese were nesting.

I suspected that the goose was nesting and then got confirmation when these obnoxious people took their dogs off their leashes and the dogs forced the goose off the eggs.  We stayed very far away from the eggs, I would never risk interfering with nesting for the sake of pictures.  These pictures only look close because I’m using a 500 mm lens.

They’re very large eggs.  At least twice as large as chickens.  The geese came back to the nest once the horrible dogs walked away.

We actually have a lots of Canada Geese in Utah.  I even see them flying over the house sometimes.

Do you want to see some flying pictures?  I have tons.

How about from the side?

Or perhaps in flight, with the primary wing feathers tipped up at the edges.

The Draper marshes also had a swimming animal.  Is this an otter?

Update: wise people in the comments have pointed out that this is actually a beaver, so I will stop referring to him as an otter.  Thanks Mom and Tiffany!  I can tell you about birds, but I am completely out of my element with mammals.

He almost looks like he’s smiling, though, doesn’t he?

I’m not sure if these geese were migrating because this area also has Canada Geese living here throughout the year.

They let me get pretty close, but in between bites, this bird would look at me to make sure I wasn’t causing trouble.

And the guy below was rubbing his head, completely blissed out in the experience.