Flooding and Feathers in Fort

On Tuesday I had the day off so on the advice of a fellow blogger I drove out to Fort Atkinson to try to find the heron rookery.  There's been a lot of rain in the area lately, and the further north I went the wetter things were looking.  By the time I got to Fort there was noticeable signs of flooding, especially along the Rock River through town.

Other benches were barely visible above the water

This is the entrance to the actual "fort" in Fort Atkinson

Riverside Drive? Try River Drive!

Should be fun getting into this driveway

And after arriving home you can feed the ducks from your bedroom window

Duck and geese crossing

I finally found the rookery, and luckily there was actually a nice shoulder to pull onto to take some photos.  I brought both my Canon EOS DSLR with the 75-300mm lens and 1.4X teleconverter and my Canon XS50.   I even put the DSLR on the tripod, but the XS50 won the contest, hands down.  The image was much farther zoomed in, and the picture quality was the same...and without a tripod!  However, when I brought the DSLR to Kettle Moraine the other day and used my extension tubes versus the XS50 the extension tubes definitely made a better image.  Seems like I won't be getting rid of my bulky bag of equipment just yet.

While I was driving around looking for the herons I saw a few other feathered friends.

The cranes were so close to the side of the road it sounded like they were ready to hop into the car with me when I rolled down the window to take a shot.  Who needs to go to a NWR?  Apparently Fort Atkinson and the Rock River is a birder's paradise!

And the flooding is only going to continue - 3 to 5 inches of rain today and more on the way tomorrow.  Perhaps by next week kayaking season can start early...right from my front door!