Here are a few birds I found by the beach in Zion, IL for this #featheredfriday by 
I walked through a muddy marsh area on the way to the Lake Michigan beach and saw many grackles.
The pathway was flooded so we had to walk through some sludgy muck, fortunately we could wash all the mud off our feet later on at the beach.
Grackle wonders why the humans are so afraid of mud.
This female Eastern Towhee also wondered why the humans ventured into the mud. Sadly I couldn't get a clear shot of the male that was chirping at her.
We made it to the beach and set foot into the water and it felt like it was 30 degrees. Way too cold to swim in and we were barely able to wash off all the mud with the cold water freezing us to our bones.
So the beach walk ended up being a sunbathing day and rock picking day. I got to try and get flying shots of the gulls flying by.
They constantly fly by so there were many opportunities to fine tune the camera settings.
Look at the gull crew, I'm surprised their wings don't accidentally hit the waves.
Here's a good wing flapping transition shot.
The other interesting shore birds were the sanderlings. I barely noticed them walking on the beach as they were really camouflaged.
I suspect these two were competing for the same riff raff that washed up on the shore.
Some of these guys even got waves crashing over them, unfortunately I didn't capture any of those moments. They didn't seem to mind the cold water at all.
On our way back from the beach we walked across a bridge that took us over the muddy river to avoid the mud. This bluebird posed nicely for me over the bridge. I came here hoping to find some sandhill cranes. But they were well hidden away in the reeds and I heard them squawking loudly but couldn't catch a glimpse of them.
Happy #featheredfriday :-)
