American Flicker

I started in my favorite part in Heber, UT.  This is where I saw my first Sandhill Crane and moose.  This time I saw an American Flicker and a Scrub Jay.

Even though Salt Lake City was completely dry, Heber is at a higher elevation and therefore had a lot of snow left.

Next we moved on to another section of the Provo River Valley.  Now, this section of Heber has tons of birds in the summer.  It’s teeming with waxwings, warblers, osprey, robins and more!  This time was less busy.  I saw a Red-Tailed Hawk.

And Black-Billed Magpies.  Although those are present everywhere in Utah.

Heber being a bust, Jon suggested that we cover the Jordanelle Reservoir and the Rockport Reservoir on the way home.  The east side of the Jordanelle Reservoir had the most activity.  At first I was getting excited over mallards but then I saw a juvenile Bald Eagle!

This is probably a third-year Bald Eagle.  The head doesn’t start to turn white until the third year and by the fourth year the head is closer to being completely white.  There were also deer.

I also saw dippers but I want to save those pictures because they deserve a separate post.  Next we stopped at the Rockport State Park, which was very very cold.

I was determined to get to the part of the reservoir that had ducks and geese.  Of course the picture below is as close as I got because ducks won’t let you get very close before they fly away.

At this point I turned around and realized how long I had been walking.

Do you see the jeep in that picture?  Hmm, let me clip a little bit of the picture.

So I got a good amount of exercise, managed to trip and hurt my foot (it’s okay now) and have sworn that I won’t walk in snow over a foot deep for extended periods of time again.  I can’t wait for Spring!