Recently in Wild Bryce Category

One of the interesting facts about Pronghorn is, for all of their speed, one thing they don't like to do is jump. It's not that they can't, they would just rather crawl under a fence instead of go over the top like a deer. While out for a walk tonight I encountered a couple of them out in a meadow just north of my homestead then, a little later on, I found a spot where they make their way into the park. I guess they poop right before crawling under the barbed wire, too, since there were two piles of scat, one of them in the lower right corner of the frame. Notice the difference in how the ground has been smoothed where they were crawling (center part of the frame).

Funny thing is, much of the surrounding area was burned in a prescribed fire last summer. Part of the fence was lost and about 150 feet to the south the fence is down - they could have walked right in without all that effort . . . (Should have looked to see if there was any fur stuck on the barbs.) While I didn't have any luck finding the (cinnamon-blond) Black Bear this morning, I did take Roxy out into the forest and found some people fishing in her regular swimmin' hole, and so I took her to a spot on the East Fork of the Sevier. That's where we found this Western Terrestrial Garter Snake. Wasn't a big one, only 12-15 inches long, but kinda cool to see anyway.

Woke up yesterday to some fresh snow and saw some footprints. They were pretty small, most likely a mouse of some kind. As I got to looking around, however, I discovered that this little critter was doing some serious trucking. They start about 100 feet from my trailer near the main road coming into the campground, come straight up the hill then make their way along the skirting I have at the back of the trailer. About midway along the skirting there was a sudden turn to the right, up to the top of a snow bank where I'd been piling snow, then a quick about face and back down. Now the prints follow the skirting along the east side of my trailer. The disappear briefly after going under the fifth wheel overhang at the front, then reappear and head toward my truck (the photo is where my "friend" is walking just below the passenger side door). Moving toward the front of my truck, it looks like it must have climbed up the power cord connected to my engine heater, up the windshield onto the roof, another about face and then down off of the truck via the power cord. The tracks continue east from there, up a snow bank and then gone.

Too bad it wasn't something really cool like a weasel . . .

Today I met my goal of seeing 100 species within 6 months in the area around Bryce Canyon National Park after adding four to the list in the past few days. Number 98 came while roaming around the eastern edge of the park on Monday where I encountered a flock of about 20 Bushtits moving through the Gambel Oaks right at the park boundary. Today I was on the way back from the lake with a wet dog when I notice a lot of movement in the brush beside the road and decided to check things out. I didn't see anything new at first - juncos, Chipping Sparrows, and bluebirds - but then a behavior caught my eye that didn't seem to fit with the aforementioned species and when it popped out so I could get a better look at it I found an American Goldfinch. I eased on down the road to find another group of birds and the first was a sparrow that I recognized but couldn't quite place. Out came the field guide and what would turn out to be number 100 was a Song Sparrow. Not satisfied (I knew I was close but hadn't tallied the list for a few days) I kept looking and discovered several White-crowned Sparrows foraging in the same area. Try as I might, I was unsuccessful in adding a fourth species to the day's total when I just could not get good enough views of a greenish-yellow bird that was in that location, too. It was most likely a Common Yellowthroat, but I just can't be certain, so we stand at 101 species to date

Two species on my list are not on the official checklist for Bryce Canyon National Park so I still need one to make that list complete. They are Burrowing Owl (documented but not yet added) and Eurasian Collared-dove (not sure why they aren't on it because the development just outside the park is riddled with them). And I need 6 to have seen half of the total number of species on the checklist.

(Click to see full list.)

In just under 5 months I've notched 90 species of birds here at Bryce Canyon - and I thought I had done it today when I heard a familiar chatter that I knew without looking belonged to a Belted Kingfisher. I was pretty excited knowing I had but 10 to go to hit the 100 mark (after totaling up the list a few days ago and thinking I was at 89). But just discovered that I am actually at 92 - I noticed when adding the kingfisher that I'd forgotten to add Great Blue Heron and Rufous Hummingbird to the list. So just that quickly I have only 8 to go to hit the century mark and I would think that some southbound migrants ought to be showing up soon.

An update was posted today at the Pacific Shorebird Migration Project and Bar-tailed Godwit "E7" has settled in on New Zealand's North Island after her incredible flight across the Pacific:

Update of Bar-tailed Godwit movements: 10 September 2007

* One godwit (E7) departed from Alaska on her southbound migration on 30 August and 8 days later had successfully reached her southern home in the Firth of Thames on the North Island of New Zealand.
* E7 flew over 11,500 km (about 7,000 miles) in a single flight! That is quite a feat for any bird.
* E7 is currently near the mouth of the Piako River near a roost site that she frequented last March. Observers from the Miranda Shorebird Centre and University of Massey are on the outlook for her and they hope to get close enough to obtain a visual observation of her leg flag and a photograph.

I created an animation in for my Wings on the Wind talk using the data from her flight and "wowed" the audience last night with it. You can download and view an excerpt (460k, click here) that is just under 2 minutes long. The file is in "PowerPoint show" format and advances slides automatically once you start it. (If you do not have Microsoft PowerPoint installed on your computer (Windows only), you can download the PowerPoint Viewer free from Microsoft here.)

Just for fun I've decided to keep a list of the wildlife I see during my stay at Bryce Canyon National Park. I will update this entry as I see new stuff and occasionally include a link to it in another entry. This entry has also been given its own category so that you may check it by clinking on the "Wild Bryce" link in the Category list on the left side of the page. In addition, as I make images of these animals in the park I will post a link to it in my master image catalog. We'll see how many I can get in the next 5 1/2 to 6 months.

BIRDS

Canada Goose*
Mallard*
Cinnamon Teal*
Green-winged Teal*
Ring-necked Duck*
Redhead*
Lesser Scaup*
Ruddy Duck*
Common Merganser*
Ruddy Duck*
Wild Turkey
Common Loon*
Pied-billed grebe
Eared Grebe*
Western Grebe*
Great-blue Heron
Snowy Egret*
White-faced Ibis*
Osprey*
Northern Harrier*
Cooper's Hawk
Northern Goshawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Golden Eagle*
American Kestrel*
Prairie Falcon*
Peregrine Falcon
Turkey Vulture
American Coot*
American Avocet*
Killdeer*
Spotted Sandpiper*
Wilson's Phalarope*
Eurasian Collared-dove*
Mourning Dove
Great-horned Owl
Burrowing Owl*
White-throated Swift
Black-chinned Hummingbird
Rufous Hummingbird
Belted Kingfisher*
Williamson's Sapsucker
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Olive-sided Flycatcher
Say's Phoebe
Hammond's Flycatcher
Gray Flycatcher
Western Kingbird*
Plumbeous Vireo
Steller's Jay
Pinyon Jay*
Western Scrub-jay
Clark's Nutcracker
Black-billed Magpie*
Common Raven
Tree Swallow*
Violet-green Swallow
Cliff Swallow
Barn Swallow*
Black-capped Chickadee
Mountain Chickadee
Red-breasted Nuthatch
White-breasted Nuthatch
Pygmy Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
House Wren
Rock Wren
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Western Bluebird
Mountain Bluebird
Townsend's Solitaire
Hermit Thrush
American Robin
Virginia's Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon's)
Black-throated Gray Warbler
Grace's Warbler
Townsend's Warbler
Western Tanager
Black-headed Grosbeak
Green-tailed Towhee
Spotted Towhee
Chipping Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Western Meadowlark*
Yellow-headed Blackbird*
Brewer's Blackbird*
Brown-headed Cowbird
Cassin's Finch
Red Crossbill
House Sparrow

MAMMALS

Pronghorn
Mule Deer
Utah Prairie Dog
Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel
Uinta Chipmunk
Long-tailed Weasel

An asterisk (*) denotes species I have seen just outside the park boundaries (within ~5 miles)

(updated 7/29)