Snow in June and Catching up with Baby Ducks

Cece met a new friend in the parking lot at the Alamdea Open Space and off they cycled!  They are still remodeling down there and Cece now sees what she thinks will be a beautiful pond and a walking and running track as well as enhanced parking!  Each time you are there, something else changes.  Today the entrance into the bosque was in an entirely different place!  Change occurs!

It was clear right away to Cece that her cleats had taken a beating yesterday given all that walking.  She kept popping out of her pedals!  Not Good! First thing on the agenda, new cleats. But the good news is that her back tire held and was fine for the entire ride of 21 miles! She had changed out her under seat bag and had gone to the bowels of her closet to find different shorts...so she was good to go.   No holes, no flats...no problems! Maybe she should design a T-Shirt with that new slogan!

Anyway, what Cece calls " beloved"  is the Bosque. She just loves to be there.  Today Cece and her new friend saw  lizards and a very interested coyote standing on the side of the pavement sniffing the air.  She wonders who is the coyote in her life right now!  She has some ideas!  : ) 

But the real reason that she travelled the bosque this am  was to check on a family of baby ducks she has been keeping her eyes on!  She first saw them there when they were just learning to swim and  still had their downy feathers.  They were very funny because they were not quite sure how to paddle under water and frequently ran across the water and then kerplunk...back into the water, they flopped.

During this first glance, they were from beak to butt, as long as Cece's index finger.Very small.  The mother duck was teaching them to swim and she tutored them to swim a zig- zag across the acequia...so back and forth they went.  When they  got a ways down,...the current became too strong for them and she honked and they swam back to her!

 Father was watching on this side in case of emergencies.

So today,  when the new friends were cycling south, they stopped and they did not see any baby ducks.  But when returning north (above) Cece asked if  she minded that they check again. The friend did not mind...so off they stopped.  Well, Cece looked south.  No birds... but when she looked north...she caught them swimming and shouted "Look!  There they are !" in evidently.... her New York Holler...because the ducks took cover!  At least some did!  LOL!

Can you see the baby ducks in the upper half of this  picture?  There are 2 visible, out of the 4.  Mother and the other 2 are hiding in the rushes on the right upper half of the picture.

.

It was a wonderful morning ride with "No Holes, No flats, No problems!"  You  might wonder about the snow in June?  Well, the old cottonwoods are releasing their pods and fur and all along the sides of the bosque, it looks like snow has piled up!  Quite an amazing site for New Mexico in June!