The sculpture in the photo below, titled “First Love”, was created by artist Carol Cunningham. I happened to notice it as I was walking back from taking photos of the fountain. I didn’t much like the photos I got of the fountain, but I do like this photo of Carol’s sculpture.
I saw this duck and two of its friends close to where I had parked. Amy tells me that the ducks are all Mallards except for the white ones. She says that those are barnyard ducks / Mallard hybrids.
I then walked around the Fountain Lake looking for more birds to photograph, but did not see many until I found this one hanging out by herself.
I continued around the lake, not seeing any birds. It turned out that many of them were gathered around this guy who was feeding them.
Good catch!
Amy has identified this white bird as a Great Egret.
This one wasn’t really flying – it was just sort of hopping around. It’s a shame that it wasn’t in better focus. Amy says it’s a Grackle.
Amy tells me that the large bird is a Canada Goose. The small one is a Red-winged Blackbird.
More ducks…
Another photo from Thursday evening…
The Fountain Hills Fountain just after 8pm…
2017-04-10 update:
When I revisited this photo, I felt that the sky (and nearly all of the darker tones) were far too blue. I did another edit which is not as blue. This version also has more definition in the sky.
Below is another version – I liked the color of the fountain in my original edit from 2013, so I did a new edit in which I tried to get closer to that color. When I was done, I did a blend of my two most recent attempts with the following result:
