Birds (and other wildlife) in Strawberry Creek after the Fire

I went to Strawberry Creek very early a couple mornings to do some bird surveys. We have data from several years before the 2016 fire, so I wanted to see how the birds were recovering post-fire. (The fire burned over 4,000 acres). Two transects had been set up, one along the riparian area, from the trailhead downstream, and one in the montane shrub, starting across the stream from the trailhead and heading up into Windy Canyon. This post is a combo of them both. The photo above is from up by Windy Canyon looking down canyon, and the trailhead is by the road's end in the middle-lower left of the photo.

So after a fire, what birds do you expect would do well? If you say cavity nesters like woodpeckers, you are right! We heard and saw so many hairy woodpeckers (and also a few other species).

 This juvenile surprised us with a peep as we walked by and stuck his head out of the hole.

American robins were common, and this one had what looked like nesting material.

This MacGillivray's warbler was singing for a mate.

This Western Tanager was very bright (and also far away!).


We heard a couple of mountain chickadees, with their easy-to-remember cheeseburger song.


Some friends from Audubon came to help do the survey, which made it much easier.


We also saw quite a few butterflies, as the wildflowers are coming back well. This butterfly is a common buckeye.

And here's a Great Basin fritillary. I can never identify them right off, so it's nice to have a photo so I can compare to the guidebook.


One morning I saw a herd of about 25 elk crossing in the burned area outside the park.

There are elk droppings all over the watershed.

By the number of fawns, I think they are doing well.

And how are the birds doing? You've seen some of the more common ones in the photos above. Spotted towhees, which like shrubs, are not as common as before. Brewer's sparrows, which like sagebrush, are nearly absent from the big meadow area, as the sage burned completely there and it will take a few years for it to return. Overall bird numbers were good, but species composition has shifted a bit. We'll keep studying what's going on. Fire can do a lot of good for the landscape, it would just be better to have smaller fires burning in a more mosaic pattern to help stabilize the watershed and provide more recovery areas. With over 100 years of fire suppression, the forests are so dense that they burn fast and hot when they do catch on fire, and that can make recovery more difficult. Be safe out there!

Miscellaneous May

 I still need to post about our Memorial Day adventures, but other than that I'm almost caught up blogging for the month of May. Except for this assortment of photos. It covers the gamut, from rural life to city life, annual events to once-in-a-lifetime events (you'll know it when you see it), and a little bit of wildlife and fun kids.

The cowboys were moving the heifers at the beginning of the month, and that involves moving them right next to the highway, so I got a few shots. I liked the one above best.

The WHOA sign was put up to stop drunk drivers who kept running a stop sign and crashing into the fence. Since then, no one has crashed the fence. I like to think that the WHOA means a lot more--like stop and take a moment to appreciate this amazing landscape!

The cafe at Lehman Caves has opened under a new name, The Great Basin Cafe, and new management. We've been in a couple times to enjoy their good treats.

Even though it's only May, we got called out to a wildfire. Fortunately it was very small.

A few hours later, we were all dressed up and in Salt Lake City.

It was time to go to the Utah Symphony! They played George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, which was absolutely amazing.

The next morning we wanted to go to animal shelters to look for a dog, but we had time before they opened, so we went to the Planetarium. This bike is just outside. It didn't go anywhere, though.

They've redone the planetarium since the last time we visited. The exhibits are more interactive. This one was to find black holes.

They had the planets to scale, which of course I really liked.

I looked at this smaller part of the exhibit for a long time, as it includes moons and dwarf planets and more that's found in our solar system. There's so much more than just the planets!

Then we went for a little trip to Io, one of Jupiter's moons. The kids liked moving the rovers.

One morning I went for a run and one of my regular routes had been flooded out. Water is high!

Desert Girl just had to go to school as a unicorn one day. I helped with the hairspray. She came home as a unicorn, too, which surprised me that her hair would stay up all day. Later I learned that she had even done her part of the class exercise video with the hairstyle. I guess unicorns can do it all.

One day at work I was in the lab and got to witness mouth-to-glottis resuscitation of a rattlesnake.  It was successful. I'm not sure if I could have done it.

Even though the water is high, which means the snow is melting rapidly and the creeks are cold, we've been to our little swimming hole a couple of times. The water is cold, but the kids still get in!

I've gotten to do a little caving, including this fun cave that required some stemming. It's fun to challenge people to go beyond their comfort zone and watch them succeed.

The school's annual field day included sack races,

three-legged races,

 and long jump, plus lots more fun events.

The days are getting so much longer, so I don't see as many sunrises or sunsets, but occasionally I get out and see the terrific colors.

Isn't this a beautiful trailer? I sure would want to buy hay from it!

Here's the view from another angle. Hay is at sale at many Cal-Ranch stores in the West.

We went to get some hay for our lambs with our new au pair (live-in babysitter) from Indiana. It's fun to show someone around who's never been out West.

The curlews are back!

And even though we're on the cusp of summer, we had to go back to winter by driving up to 10,000 feet and playing in the snow. Desert Girl couldn't wait to throw snow balls at me.

Hope you had a good May! And good June. I still can't quite process that we're so far into it.

2017 Backyard Birds

We've been keeping track of our backyard birds again this year and although we started very slowly (no species observed in February because life got crazy), we've added to our list steadily since then. I feel like the kids are learning the birds a lot better now; repetition helps! The Bullock's orioles came back about two weeks ago, with their noisy chattering making the yard a lot noisier! Above is a female in the golden sunrise.

Of course, the birds we see most in our yard are our chickens! We have three grown hens that we've had for more than a year. They are fantastic layers. We got six new chicks in April, and they've grown fast. They spend their days in the run, which is an old swingset covered with chicken wire (including the bottom). They think it's awesome. They spent about two weeks in it during the days, and now we're letting them venture out a little on their own. That big rubbermaid container was their home for the first 10 days in the house, but then they started escaping too much so were moved out to the chicken coop with some baby gates to keep them separated from the big hens.

We see kestrels in our yard almost every day. They like the lombardy poplars a lot. I'm not sure if they're nesting in one of them or not--I hope so! The poplars and all the trees in the yard were trimmed this last winter so they will hopefully last a lot longer.

We see American robins frequently.

And this bird is also frequent. It's not my favorite, as it's non-native, but it is kind of pretty. Do you know it?

European starling. The feathers can be very shimmery in the right light.

Fortunately we do have native bird species around us. I found this one up the road, a sage thrasher. I don't seem them often, so had to look it up!

While I was doing a short-eared owl survey (no short-eared owls out here, unfortunately), I found this northern harrier on a fence post, with the snow-capped Deep Creek mountains in the background.

I did find another kind of owl, a burrowing owl. They are adorable (but hard to photograph without disturbing them).


We got a new dog from a shelter, and three days after we got her, my husband took her with him to work in the fields in a nearby town. He started a pump, it made a big noise, and she got scared and ran away. We went and looked for her frequently--nine trips! On some of the trips, I photographed birds, as it gave me an excuse to dawdle and hopefully for her to smell me and come back. Here are some red-winged blackbirds.

And I was tickled to find a merganser (not sure which kind) and an eared grebe swimming next to each other.

The curlews have been back over a month, although we still haven't seen one in our yard. They are so strange looking.

I was a little surprised to see this Cattle Egret out in one of the fields. It was a very windy day, so it was hunkered down.

The Western Kingbirds are another noisy bird that come into the yard frequently. And I just realized that we never added it to our list. Hurray for #27!

The Yellow-headed Blackbirds like being by the agricultural areas and water. I've never seen one in the yard.

And as for the dog, we got the word out she was missing, and our friends let us know every time they saw her. She kept running, though, so by the time we got down there, she was gone. On day four we got a call that she was lying in the yard. And this time she stayed and we were happily reunited!

Back to birds: We've gotten 35 species in the backyard the last two years, so our goal is to break that number. Hopefully with hummingbirds, night hawks, and more raptors, we might do that! You can see our list on the sidebar to the right. What birds have you seen in your yard lately?