Saturday was forecast to be partly sunny and then cloud up in the afternoon.The Channel 4 weather app said that Alton was 54 degrees and Clear at first light when we started loading the truck with tripods and the clutter photographers tend to carry with them. As I put food out for the backyard birds, the sun looked like it would break out within the hour. As we got closer to Alton, the sky became more and more overcast. The thermometer in the truck said 40 degrees.

By the time we got to the peregrine site, it was obvious the weather app was wrong.*DUH!!*

White skies made for challenging photography and the brisk NW wind coming off the Mississippi River made staying warm even more challenging. Molly toughed it out for about an hour getting the peregrine shot above but finally had to retreat to the truck. She elected to shoot off the Apex bean bag to get the pelican captures in the slideshow. The flock of pelicans in the slide show were at the mouth of Brickhouse Slough which was waaaaayyyyyy across the river from the peregrines and demonstrates using a 500 as a ‘wide angle’ LOL.

The ever cheerful Carolyn Schlueter rolled up around 9:30 and we all had a pleasant chat while trying to stay warm and do a little photography.

The images in the slide show only needed a little sharpening and cropping…once again Molly nailed them.