salonva, do stop by more often...I'm always amazed at how wonderful the pics are and at the wide variety we get from our friends here. They help me see the world in a new way, for which I am grateful.

Wow Elizabeth! What a rack!

:)

I took the photo through the truck window. He took off very quickly.

What a glorious Animal....how can anyone just want to "hunt" it? Sigh. Loving

the little "ducks" though.

That's my "go fast" bike, in font of the Civic Center Music Hall!

Moni, I find it hard to believe you have a "go slow" bike. LOL

We got at least 10" of snow yesterday.

Susan, it is super lightweight and no options to haul any gear at all... thus, it is a go fast bike.. LOL

Susa we, that is adorable in its simplicity. Green Santa hat is good.

Egrets several weeks ago. Herons traveling or living together is called a "siege". Digging deeper, I learned that a group of egrets may be called a "congregation", "heronry", "skewer", and "wedge".

One of my recent works.

In the duck theme

My colorful fellow.

Beautiful Raven. Dragonflywings - thanks for the fun trivia.

Ducks in a row:

I thought I had some photos of ducks at the L.A. County Arboretum, but they turned out to be turtles.

Lars, please share your method of roasting a duck. It looks delicious. I'd like to try it sometime but others keep telling me the meat is too fatty.

Lars, the birds on the rocks in your 3rd photo are cormorants.

This shoebill lives at the San Diego Zoo. He looks like he would fit right in with the Flintstones to me.

For roasting duck, I used this method from thehungrymouse. I used my own hot sauce instead of Sriracha, but otherwise, I pretty much followed those instructions. I ended up with a lot of duck fat (which I wanted), and I used that to make tamales. I substituted duck fat for lard, and it very much improved the flavor of the tamales. One reason I roast duck is to get the fat. It may seem like a lot of work, but it is worth is, especially for holidays. Unfortunately, one duck will not serve that many - maybe four people at most.

thanks.