Today we'll be getting settled in at the campground in Bryce Canyon, home for the next several months. On Sunday morning I started the day with a trip to Tropic Reservoir to see what sort of ducks (or other water birds) I might find. It is a short drive from the park and may be a place to visit from time to time as the summer passes. Mallards were the most abundant species; Cinnamon Teal were also present along with Canada Geese, a raft of 23 Eared Grebes, and 10 Lesser Scaup. While the scaup were a bit of a surprise, even more so was the lone female Red-breasted Merganser (at one point swimming with the grebes) and 3 Common Loons. In the case of the loons the Handheld Birds software for my PDA said they shouldn't be here (but Yellow-billed Loon was okay???) so I shot a picture of one of them (from very far away) that is at least good enough for documentation purposes.
Most of the rest of the day was spent out of the wind and waiting for either rain (or snow) to appear. There was a break in the clouds shortly before sunset which prompted me to drive into the park to see if it would light up the hoodoos. That never happened though I did encounter some relatively tame Pronghorn close to the road and got the shot above in the day's fading light.
In the strange behavior department there were 3 bucks hanging out together and a pair of does came walking toward them. The buck's first reaction was to take off and I was thinking maybe they weren't too sure about what was coming in their direction (do Pronghorn have bad eyes?). As the does drew closer the bucks seemed to settle down and they began to mingle. Then, all of a sudden, one of bucks starts to chase one of the does and it looked more like it was out anger than wooing. He chased her all over the meadow for the longest time before it came to an end and the does wandered away while the 3 bucks went back to grazing.
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