Just lookin'...

["William J. Hunter" <william4 at sisna dot com>]

Hi all. This won't compare to the hot birds you've been seeing, but it
does provide data.

Thursday, Charlie Sheard and I got itchy feet, so we traveled some 305
miles looking for birds. We went up through Cedar City and out SR 130 to
Minersville, then to Minersville Reservoir and Adamsville. We then went
to Beaver and North Creek and then for the heck of it we drove up to Elk
Meadows. No birds there.

We saw 37 species of birds, which I consider good as there was 2" to 4"
inches of snow on the ground, Minersville was frozen solid except at the
entrance of the Beaver River and it snowed for a couple of hours during
our jaunt.

I'll not list every specie except that we did see 7 species of raptor:
Bald Eagle (6), Red-tailed Hawk (6), Rough-legged hawk (6), Golden Eagle
(7), American Kestrel (1), Merlin (2), Prairie Falcon (1). And there was
one Loggerheaded Shrike.

Also of interest we saw two flocks of Wild Turkeys, one in North Creek,
the other east of Beaver on SR 153 totaling 17 birds. And one cold
Mourning Dove at Adamsville.

ETC: The resident flock of Pinyon Jays is still in Minersville. I've
watched them for 23 years now. On the road to North Creek there was a
Townsend Solitaire. The dairy spring in Adamsville had the most
exquisitely marked Song Sparrows and, for what it's worth, there were
Great-tailed Grackles in the town of Minersville.

Happy trails,

Bill