Photo Gallery
Photos by Rich Hoyer
The Pawnee National Grassland at first appeared dry and lifeless, but one could almost always hear a Lark Bunting or McCown’s Longspur singing. This McCown’s was waiting for us to depart before taking food to its nestlings.
The short grass prairie is home to many other animals as well, even butterflies, such as this cryptic Riding’s Satyr.
The verdant views within Rocky Mountain National Park couldn’t contrast more with the short grass prairie. The birds there…
…such as this zinging male Broad-tailed Hummingbird are also quite different. The prairie has its grouse…
…while the alpine tundra has its White-tailed Ptarmigan.
This year we detoured over Cameron Pass and were surprised by a small flock of lovely male Pine Grosbeaks feeding on the roadside gravel, allowing very close approach.
West of Colorado’s Front Range, the birdlife becomes decidedly western such as this Bullock’s Oriole…
…and even a southwestern flavor sneaks in to the far western part of the state near Colorado National Monument, a very good example being this Black-throated Sparrow.
The views of the many sandstone layers at the national monument are awe inspiring. Here we watched a Peregrine Falcon dive bomb a pair of Turkey Vultures that mistakenly flew over the long-tended nest.
The pinyon-juniper woodland here is home to many specialty birds, this one a Western Scrub-Jay of the Woodhouse’s subspecies.
A closer look into the understory of the pinyon-juniper woodland revealed some beautiful wildflowers, such as this Colorado Four O’Clock.
These petroglyphs at Dinosaur National Monument, scratched into the sandstone by mysterious Fremont Cultures several thousand years ago aren’t nearly as old as the nearby fossils, but they still make one stop and think about what life must have been like…
…but there’s nothing like good views of an unusual bird to bring you back to the present, such as this Red Crossbill, one of a flock that was wandering far from the mountain forests, probably to feed on the Boxelder Maple seeds along the creek across from the petroglyphs.
This year’s tour saw scads and scads of Pronghorn on nearly every day of the tour. We saw mothers with calves (we even flushed one while walking the sagebrush for grouse), but the older males like this one seem to lose their fear.
At a picnic lunch break in central Utah, the leader showed his critter catching skills with this Sagebrush Lizard.
There were lots of wildflowers at every elevation, and this Prairie Flax was particularly common in places.
In our ultimately unsuccessful quest for a Williamson’s Sapsucker, we continued to come across Red-naped Sapsuckers, such as this one during a short stop between Vernal and Park City. The trees here were alive with Yellow-rumped Warblers, Mountain Chickadees, Olive-sided Flycatchers, and Warbling Vireos.
An early morning departure to the high elevations of the Uintas was worth it for the views and wildflowers alone, but this photo was taken from the very spot (at about 11,000 feet) where we came face-to-face with a gorgeous male Black Rosy-Finch. We had excellent views, though he didn’t stay long enough for a portrait.
The Glacier Lilies were abundant here, almost carpet-like in areas in the high Uintas. (Pronounce it like a question: “You inta birds?”).
The Uinta Chipmunk is notable for it’s arboreal habits, but taking over an owl nest box is a bit much. There were four of them here when we first came across this scene on a back road in the Uintas…
…and just up this same road was a view as enticing as any you can imagine. A quietly babbling brook, Ruby-crowned Kinglets and “Audubon’s” Yellow-rumped Warblers singing, swallowtail butterflies drifting by…
…and other fascinating creatures such as this Chryxus Arctic…
…and this handsome Northern Checkerspot.
Our final day saw us at low elevations once again (but still well above sea level). While the female Yellow-breasted Chat skulked out of concern for our presence near her nest, this hormone-packed male couldn’t resist the opportunity to belt out his song.
And in the very same habitat was this Fox Sparrow, one of the subspecies that belong to the Slate-colored group, a split we’re all waiting for…
…and our tour ends along the Great Salt Lake, a place with fascinating geological history. While native flamingos used to feed here (along with camels and giant ground sloths), we had to do with rafts of brine flies, drifts of brine shrimp, and the thousands of Eared Grebes, California Gulls, and American Avocets that feed on them.