Last night I experienced something new by assisting on a Bryce Canyon Full Moon Hike. Though I had some chances to tag along before, I just hadn't gotten around to doing it - but am certainly glad I did this time. It really is quite a trip, no flashlights are allowed so everyone relies on the light of the Moon and nicely dark-adapted eyes. The trail we took - a 2.2 mile (round trip) hike of a section of Fairyland Loop - was also new for me and I am looking forward to a trip in the daylight so I can get some photos. There are some truly incredible rock formations along that stretch of trail, plus a bunch of Bristlecone Pines and one neatly twisted and gnarled Ponderosa Pine that, at least in the moonlight, looked quite photogenic. According to my GPS the highest elevation was 8016 feet (at the beginning) and the lowest point was where we turned around to go back at 7551 feet. If I'm doing the math right it works out to just short of a 10% average grade. Wish we would have heard some owls, though

In other news, Sunday's bird walk was a little light on the species count at 15 (I blame post-breeding dispersal) but we still had some interesting sightings beginning with a new for me in the park Rock Wren. The fun part about ID'ing the wren was that I relied upon an observed behavior ("bobbing") to zero in on it before checking for coloration and field marks. A little later we had an unusual pick-up in the form of a juvenile Northern Harrier that was totally out of habitat since where we saw it flying was over the rim of the Bryce Amphitheater (as oppose to open fields or marshes). Then the last species we found on the walk was a Virginia's Warbler (only the third I have seen here).