Thursday night, Bill, Marin and I met up with Bilsky at City Creek Canyon in Salt Lake City to do some owling. We hiked about a mile each way, playing tapes, and puled out a WESTERN SCREECH OWL as well as a NORTHERN SAW-WHET OWL. After, we went to see Laser U2 at the planetarium near their house- my lifer laser show. I had a deep epiphany that U2 is consistently semi-interesting.
Friday morning I went to the Salt Lake City Cemetery to see what kind of birds were present there. It was pretty birdy, including some of my western favorites like BLACK-BILLED MAGPIE, MOUNTAIN CHICKADEE, and a new great for me, TOWNSEND'S SOLITAIRE.
I later checked out the Salt Lake City Library, which was insanely incredible. At 4:30, Bilsky was out of work and ready to head down to the St. George Birding Festival in the southwest corner of the state. We stopped at the Provo airport, which had a dike going around a marsh. This was where he had seen a LONG-EARED OWL the week before, and when we got there, it was settled in the same spot. We got down to our camp site at Quail Creek State Park at a little after 10, and set up. It was freezing, and little sleep was had, but we got through the night, hearing GREAT-HORNED OWLS the whole time.
This morning we met up with Bilsky's friend Jim, and his nephew Pat, and headed to Lytle Ranch. This was a riparian, working ranch, tucked inside of a joshua tree forest. Within a few miles of driving in, we had located SAGE SPARROW, LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE, and numerous CACTUS WREN.
In the ranch, we got looks at a few southwestern specialties that I had never seen, including PHAINOPEPLA, GAMBEL'S QUAIL, and VERDIN. Although we tried, we dipped on CRISSAL THRASHER and BLACK-TAILED GNATCATCHER at this site.
By the time we left the ranch, it was afternoon, and we used the remaining daylight to locate some birds of interest. At Tonaquint park, we were treated to ABERT'S TOWHEE as well as a couple low flying FERRUGINOUS HAWK. We then stopped at a site that a male VERMILLION FLYCATCHER had been seen at, and found him very quickly. Two more stops , one for CRISSAL THRASHER and the other, at a wash, for SWAMP SPARROW were for naught. However, GREAT-TAILED GRACKLE, SORA, and LADDER-BACKED WOODPECKER were some good birds seen in the process.
We headed back to the campsite and looked for the recently seen YELLOW-BILLED LOON. We couldn't find it, and decided we didn't want to spend another night miserable. We went into Hurricane and rented a room at Travelodge, got some Mexican food to go, and are in for the night quite early. This was an awesome day of serious birding that included 54 species. I'm excited that I'll get a good night's sleep before doing it again tomorrow.
Friday morning I went to the Salt Lake City Cemetery to see what kind of birds were present there. It was pretty birdy, including some of my western favorites like BLACK-BILLED MAGPIE, MOUNTAIN CHICKADEE, and a new great for me, TOWNSEND'S SOLITAIRE.
I later checked out the Salt Lake City Library, which was insanely incredible. At 4:30, Bilsky was out of work and ready to head down to the St. George Birding Festival in the southwest corner of the state. We stopped at the Provo airport, which had a dike going around a marsh. This was where he had seen a LONG-EARED OWL the week before, and when we got there, it was settled in the same spot. We got down to our camp site at Quail Creek State Park at a little after 10, and set up. It was freezing, and little sleep was had, but we got through the night, hearing GREAT-HORNED OWLS the whole time.
This morning we met up with Bilsky's friend Jim, and his nephew Pat, and headed to Lytle Ranch. This was a riparian, working ranch, tucked inside of a joshua tree forest. Within a few miles of driving in, we had located SAGE SPARROW, LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE, and numerous CACTUS WREN.
In the ranch, we got looks at a few southwestern specialties that I had never seen, including PHAINOPEPLA, GAMBEL'S QUAIL, and VERDIN. Although we tried, we dipped on CRISSAL THRASHER and BLACK-TAILED GNATCATCHER at this site.
By the time we left the ranch, it was afternoon, and we used the remaining daylight to locate some birds of interest. At Tonaquint park, we were treated to ABERT'S TOWHEE as well as a couple low flying FERRUGINOUS HAWK. We then stopped at a site that a male VERMILLION FLYCATCHER had been seen at, and found him very quickly. Two more stops , one for CRISSAL THRASHER and the other, at a wash, for SWAMP SPARROW were for naught. However, GREAT-TAILED GRACKLE, SORA, and LADDER-BACKED WOODPECKER were some good birds seen in the process.
We headed back to the campsite and looked for the recently seen YELLOW-BILLED LOON. We couldn't find it, and decided we didn't want to spend another night miserable. We went into Hurricane and rented a room at Travelodge, got some Mexican food to go, and are in for the night quite early. This was an awesome day of serious birding that included 54 species. I'm excited that I'll get a good night's sleep before doing it again tomorrow.
Sweet birds...I'm ready to be out West with you. Can't wait! Meanwhile, our BTYW is hanging strong at Green Cay. And I've even managed to find a few new year birds recently.
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