This morning I made my last scheduled visit to Silver Sands State Park for the year in my official capacity as a volunteer shorebird monitor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. I'm sure I'll be back to the park again at some point (and without my semi-dorky official hat), but the end of these weekly visits makes me feel like summer may actually be coming to a close.
The birds certainly know that summer is ending, and I saw just gobs of shorebirds on their southward fall migration. Whole stretches of the shoreline were packed with Semipalmated Sandpipers (the mottled gray and white birds) and Semipalmated Plovers (the brown and white birds with fancy black bibs), blending expertly in with the rocks:
I counted over 300 sandpipers and 100 plovers in just one area -- hardly the largest gathering of shorebirds ever, but more than I've ever seen at this beach before.
Many of the sandpipers were sleeping, just completely zonked out. We'd had a heavy thunder storm earlier in the day, so I wonder that contributed to the birds' tiredness:
(I know these birds look dead, but I promise, they're just sleeping. Or at least, I think I saw most of them open their eyes while I was there....)
Hanging out with the group of semipalmated creatures (the internet tells me that this adjective refers to the webbing between these birds' toes... who knew!), there was also a sleek Least Tern -- I love the markings on this bird's beak:
And this totally weird-looking shorebird, a Ruddy Turnstone:
That's a nice angry mask you have, bird!
Away from the shore, an immature Cooper's Hawk surveyed the area from its perch on a small tree:
And when it took off, it flew past me, right at eye level -- what an awesome bird:
It was great to see so many creatures, and I definitely enjoyed the cooler breezes on the beach. It's hard for me to believe, but summer really does seem to be winding down!
While we were visiting Paul's family in southern New Jersey this weekend, we saw a lot of deer. I already knew that White-tailed Deer were really common (and something of a nuisance) in their neighborhood, and we often see a few at a distance whenever we visit. But this weekend, the deer seemed especially numerous, and bold. At one point, we saw a doe and an antlered buck grazing a few feet from the road, and they barely moved when we drove slowly by and rolled down our windows to stare at them. And on Saturday morning, we watched a pair of fawns browsing through a neighbor's yard:
We walked closer -- talking and cameras clicking, not really trying very hard to be stealthy -- and the deer kept an eye on us but didn't show any signs of fear:
I guess these babies -- and the adults we saw earlier -- are pretty used to people now, after wandering through many neighborhoods without meeting any danger. These two fawns were getting quite big already, and I wonder how much longer they'll keep their lovely spots.
After a few minutes, we turned around, and the deer continued on their way. Booming White-tailed Deer populations certainly cause problems, but these creatures are still really cool to see.
This afternoon, I looked out my window and saw this totally strange bird on top of the house across the street:
It's definitely pigeon-shaped, but with a strangely long neck and legs, and an overly-large and bumpy beak. That pale skin around its eyes is pretty weird, too. It also had a purple band around its left leg (hidden in this picture), which is what tipped me off to a possible ID: I think this is someone's domestic pigeon! I don't know pigeon breeds at all, but it looks like it could be a racing pigeon, maybe something like this, or this.
So while this bird doesn't exactly count as wildlife, it was still pretty cool to see. It stuck around for a few minutes, alternating between pacing and resting, and then flew off. I wonder if it was in the middle of a race....
You just never know who's going to stop by next!
This morning, I found this very pretty bug on my porch:
As it turns out, this is a nymph (that is, juvenile) Green Stink Bug (Chinavia hilaris), a native insect which I see fairly frequently around here. I just cannot get over the gorgeous colors and patterns on this creature! These bugs eat all sorts of different plants, but they've not (yet) become so numerous that they cause problems in my yard, so I'm happy to have them around.
Keep on munching and growing, pretty little creature!
Another real highlight of our trip to Utah was the time we spent in Antelope Island State Park, situated on a large island surrounded by the Great Salt Lake. The environment here was such a strong contrast to the mountains we'd already been exploring -- there were basically no trees on the island, and very few flowers, just expanses of mostly-brown low-lying plants and rock and sandy shores:
But there was plenty of life on the island, and lots of cool creatures to see. At the park's visitors' center, we got a special treat among the building's rafters. Not only were there hundreds of Barn Swallows swooping around, building their mud nests in the shelter of the roof:
But one of the staff members pointed out a Barn Owl nest to us as well, complete with four big babies of varying fluffiness (the fourth owl is hiding in this picture):
That's certainly not something you get to see every day! (Or, I guess you would if you worked at the Antelope Island visitors' center!)
On one of the higher ridges on the island, we had our only reptile encounter of the trip (we somehow managed to avoid snakes), an impressive Tiger Whiptail (Aspidoscelis tigris):
What a striking pattern this lizard has, and I think I can see where it gets its name -- it does have a remarkably long tail:
Down on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, the most numerous creature by far was the Brine Fly. There were so many of these insects that they made black clouds above the surface of the lake, and the clouds shifted -- looking and sounding like waves of water -- whenever someone walked toward them. (You can find some really awesome videos of this phenomenon if you search for "brine flies" and "great salt lake" on YouTube.) The entire beach was ringed with just tons of the flies' leftover pupal casings, making thick brown bands along the shoreline:
The flies weren't at all harmful, and some people were even swimming in the water (I wasn't tempted). Several California Gulls were also wandering around snapping up the flying meals:
A group of Long-billed Curlews was also present at the beach, but they seemed more interested in resting than hunting flies:
There were actually many more birds along the shores of the island, and the Great Salt Lake apparently provides an important source of food for birds, especially during migration. We saw a huge number and variety of shorebirds (gulls, avocets, sandpipers, terns...) as we drove along the causeway that connects the island to the rest of the state, but the many signs along that road warned us not to leave our cars, so we didn't take the chance to explore further.
Towards the interior of the island, we found some of the bigger attractions of the park: large mammals. Pronghorns were only re-introduced to the island in 1993 (they were presumably wiped out many years ago, when the island was a ranch), and they seem to be doing well now. We drove by a small herd of female Pronghorns:
And we saw one lone male Pronghorn, off in the distance (they're such funny-looking -- and cool! -- creatures):
But one of the biggest draws to this park is the island's population of American Bison, which was established in the late 1800s and is managed to maintain a size of around 600 individuals (the island is only so big). We drove by quite a few of these wonderfully massive creatures and stopped to watch them graze:
I think this is probably the closest I've been to a bison. So cool!
I kind of just wanted to hug these guys. I didn't do it, but I wanted to.
We didn't get to see any of the baby bison that are currently on the island, nor did we see the herd in large numbers, but just getting to be close to these creatures was a great experience.
So Antelope Island was awesome, and we didn't even see everything the park has to offer. (There's a population of Bighorn Sheep on the island, and Burrowing Owls.) Maybe someday I'll get to go back....
I have one final sight from the Utah trip to share. On the way back from Antelope Island, we drove a little way into the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge to see what was hanging around. It was pretty quiet overall, but we did get a close view of a Swainson's Hawk -- one of the bigger raptors in the area -- perched on a fence post by the road:
Raptors are always impressive, and this was a nice end to an exciting day.
I had a great time
visiting Northeastern Utah and getting to see so much varied habitat and
wildlife. What a wonderful introduction to that part of our country!
