St George

I went to St. George the last weekend in January with a friend for a weekend of birding. It was an amazing weekend. We saw about 55 diferent species that weekend including some life birds for both of us.

Bear River

Bear River Wildlife Refuge is located in Northern Utah near Brigham City, Utah. It is one of the major habitats for migrating birds in the mountain west. During fall and spring hundreds of thousands of birds use it as a pit stop. In the dead of winter however, it is a baren wasteland of ice and frozen mud. This frigid desert is where I spent last Saturday. Hundreds of horned Larks flock together and rummage through the frozen ground looking for seeds and whatever else they can get their beaks on. It turns out that a few species of rare longspurs hang out with these flocks. Several longspur's had been reported over the last few days and so 4 of us Utah County birders took the trip up to find them. After 4 hours of looking at hunderds of sparrow size horned larks through binoculars and spotting scopes and not finding a single longspur, we decided to call it quits and head back home. As we started to head back to the freeway, we got a phone call from the Stackhouse's (a couple that was out looking for them too) saying they had found at least 3 in the flock they were looking at about a quarter of a mile back! We quickly turned around, pulled out the scopes, and got a great look for at least 10 minutes. It was a fun adventure. The brand new nature center is right off the freeway and I would recomend it as a great pit-stop for anyone traveling north.

Airport Road

Mom and I tested out my new Ipod speakers synched with bird songs last week. It was especially cool to hear at least 3 or 4 diferent Sora respond to their calls. We found some warblers, but apparently the bird songs had 4 CDs and I only uploaded the first 3....so we didn't get to call out any of them.

We did see a pair of gnatcatchers that hung around us for about 15 minutes.

The Uintas

Last week I went on a 4 day camping / hiking trip with some family. It was amazing. We camped at the Trial Lake campground which as the name suggests, was right next to Trial Lake (one of the 20 or so lakes in the park). We were at roughly 10,000 feet at the campground. The view of the lake in front of miles of pine trees and mountain peaks was surreal.

Tuesday we hiked from bald mountain up to meadow lake. Then took the trail up to "The Notch" and back down the other side ending up back at our campground at Trial Lake. It was a spectacular hike. Not to dificult. I think we covered about 11 miles that day. We saw several people backpacking in to camp for a few days up at meadow lake. While we all agreed that packing in your gear would be fun, we were glad to only be carrying day packs.

Wednesday I stayed at the campsite while everyone else went back up into the lake country on a shorter 6 mile hike that took them up into basically the same area, but on a diferent trail. I enjoyed chopping wood and keeping a fire running all day. I also managed to track down a few birds including a Clark's nutcracker, several white-crowened sparrows, and some red crossbills. We also had a very brave Chipmunk take over our campsite on Wednesday. He would actually jump up in our laps and stand on his back legs and beg for food. I think we ended up giving him about a pound of peanuts.

Wednesday night, Dan, Lena, Cory, Daniel, and I hiked up Bald Mountain starting a little past sunset. By the time we reached the summit it was about as dark as you could imagine. The moonless sky at 12,000 feet is amazing! It was a rough hike to do so late at night, but it was well worth it.

Thursday, my cousin Daniel and I were driving home and just north of Heber, we saw 2 nesting Swainson's Hawks. We pulled over to the side of the road and watched them take off and soar around the feilds together for probably 15 minutes. It was a great finish to a great trip.

Mountains

Last Thursday, I went to meet up with the Utah County Birders to go owling. I took a little nap in the afternoon and was 10 or 15 min late, so I ended up missing them. Because I was all the way down in Payson, I decieded to go explore Payson Canyon instead of head home. WOW! Payson Canyon is so beautiful. There are several camp grounds, streams, trails, lakes, wildlife and everything else you would expect from a Utah canyon. It was pretty busy for being a thursday, but I didn't mind, it makes me happy to know so many people are out of their homes and enjoying our beautiful Utah scenery.

Saturday night my sister and I hiked up to the Y. Monday night we hiked up Y, but kept going and made it all the way to the top. About 3/4 of the way up you are able to see Provo peak. Provo peak has been my goal for a few years. This is the year I'm going to make it up there.

Owls, songbirds, and Eagles

Mom and I went with a group out west of Goshen, UT this morning. We saw a long-eared owl nest with 3 babies. They were so cool looking. We saw a bunch of sparrows, warblers, vireos, and some others. We road down through this canyon and ended up back in goshen. We then went out into the farmland in Goshen to a spot where golden eagles have been nesting for 15+ years. There was one juvenile that was maybe a year or 2 old. He flew off the nest and was attacked by 5 or 6 western kingbirds. One actually landed on his back and started pecking at him while hitching a ride for like 4 or 5 seconds.

Killdeer
Great-blue heron
Red-winged blackbird
White-faced Ibis
California Gull
Raven
Turkey Vulture
Virginia Warbler
Morning Dove
Long-eared Owl
Chipping Sparrow
Brewer's Sparrow
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Western Tanager
Warbling Vireo
Plumbus Viero
Am. Goldfinch
Gray flycather
Spotted towhee
Hermet Thrush
House finch
Juniper titmouse
Black-throated Gray warbler
Mountain Bluebird
Rock Wren
Barn Swallow
Red-tailed Hawk
Northern Mockingbird
Lark sparrow
Western Kingbird
Brewere's Blackbird
Brown-headed cowbird
W. Meadowlark
Eur. Starling
Am. Kesteral
Eurasian Collared-dove
Am. robin
Bullock's oriole
House sparrow
Mallard
Golden Eagle
Snowy Egret
Scrub Jay
Northern Harrier

Rainy-Day Part 2

I took my mom out birding tonight. We basically took a loop around West mountain stopping at some farms and at lincoln beach. Highlights were seeing a Horned lark, Yellow warbler, and a flock of American Gold finches. It was really fun to go bird watching with mom. It's been a few years since we've gone on a birding field trip together. Hopefully we get to go on a few more over the next 2 months she is here.

Yellow Warbler

Mourning dove, Rock Dove, Red-winged blackbird, Barn swallow, Western Meadowlark*, American Kestral, Horned Lark*, Turkey Vulture, Western Kingbird, European Starling, Yellow-headed blackbird, American Robin, Black-necked stilt, Tree swallow, Redhead, Nrothern Shoveler, White-faced Ibis, Killdeer, American Coot, Black-crowned night heron, Eurasian Collared Dove, American White Pelican, Gadwall, Snowy Egret, Crismson Teal, American Avocet, Wilson's Phalarope, House Finch, Bullocks Oriole, clark's Grebe, Spotted sandpiper, Franklin's gull, Brown-headed cowbird, Cliff swallow, Grea-blue heron, Yellow Warbler, American Goldfinch*, California Quail, Snowy plover, House Sparrow

40 total in about 3 hours