After all the cold and gloomy weather, the forecast Thursday for sun and above freezing temps prompted me to take a road trip to Baldwin Lake in Illinois. Truly a ‘wild hare’ kind of excursion since I had never been there and it is about an hour’s drive from home. John Watson had said there were snow geese there….actually he said there were thousands of snow geese there. He was right.

Only problems I had on the trip was the GPS sent me to the wrong part of town ( found out there was a service road that connected where I was to where I needed to be but it was closed of course 🙂 ). Also where the snow geese wanted to be was on the main drag near the power plant truck entrance. The road’s ‘shoulder’ at that location is best described as “slim and none” but the term where there is a will proved true.

The roads were in good shape for the most part and there were a ton of hawks along them,both going to the lake and coming home. You would have thought from the number of hawks that you were in western Missouri or eastern Oklahoma. Stopped at the area HQ and got some brochures about Baldwin Lake and Peabody-River King Fish and Wildlife Areas. Baldwin Lake may not become one of my ‘home’ areas like RMBS etc but it is definitely worth a return trip and I look forward to exploring River King as well.

Here are a few shots from Thursday 2/13/2014 and the trip to Baldwin Lake