Lincoln Beach

There is a cool little state park on the southern end of Utah Lake. To get there you have to drive West of Springville through some beautiful farm country and Benjamin, Utah. We drove out there after diner tonight. Megan loved the scenery (I think it reminded her of home).

We also have a new gadget, or gizmo if you will. A new digital SLR canon (w/ a telephoto lens). WOOT! We took a ton of photos to mess around and start getting used to it. Also on our trip tonight we got some pics of what we thought were a few common birds. When we came home and looked them up we were surprised at what we found. 5 new birds to add to the list, a few of which were not on my life list.

Tree Swallow
Willet
Redhead
Northern Shoveler
Wilson's Phalarope
Gadwall

That puts us up to 43 species for the weekend (extended weekend).

Airport Dike Road Sitings

After dinner we took a quick drive down to Provo Airport. There is a road that goes all the way around the airport on top of the dike that was built to drain the area for the airport. It's mostly marsh land and there are tons of water birds. It's pretty crazy to find a marsh area in the middle of our Utah desert. Here's a list of what we saw today. We were both really excited to see the Black-crowned Night Heron. They are so other-wordly.

Megan had to work Monday morning, and I had the day off from school, so the boys and I went back and saw a few more things and this time brought binoculars to check a few I wasn't sure of from yesterday. On the way down I saw an Osprey with a huge branch in it's claws. It flew over the road and into some trees behind a farm. That was pretty amazing to see.

Black-billed Magpie
Franklin's Gull*
Cinnamon Teal *
House Finch *
American Great White Pelican *
Eastern Kingbird *
Western Grebe *
Black-crowned Night-Heron *
Bullock's Oriole *
American Coot
Redwinged Blackbird
Western Kingbird
Killdeer
Yellow-headed Blackbird
Mourning Dove
American Robin
Cliff Swallow
European Starling
House Sparrow

Sandhill crane*

Marsh Wren*

Osprey*

*New to our 2009 list

Eastern Kingbird

Places to go

Here is a list of places I'd like to visit this summer or some time some day:


Antelope Island
Fish Springs Wildlife Refuge
Provo Peak
Mt. Nebo - nebo scenic drive
Bryce Canyon
Zion Ntl. Park
Lone Peak
King's Peak
Goblin Valley St. Park

Birds

This last week I found my old lifelist that my mom had been keeping for me when I was younger. It got me interested in birding again. Since then I've started a new 2009 list.

Megan, the boys, and I went down to Utah Lake State Park this evening and sited about 20 species. We forgot to bring a bird book and binoculars though. Woopsy. Luckily we didn't see anything too dificult to ID. Here's our list for tonight:

Kildeer
Yellow-headed Blackbird
Brown-headed Cowbird
American Coot
American Robin
Cliff Swallow
Rock Dove
House Sparrow
Canada Goose
Mourning Dove
California Quail
Great Blue Heron
Mallard
Western Kingbird
California Gull
European Starling
American Kestrel
Red-wing Blackbird
Black-billed magpie