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UT 39 provides some highly accessible riparian
habitats east of Huntsville due to the numerous Forest Service campgrounds along
the South Fork of the Ogden River. I birded several of the
campgrounds and around the Ogden Valley as well. I don't know how
many species I saw, but I'll share the memorables: In Ogden
Valley: Sandhill Crane up to their bellies in dandelions, with the buffy
and rust periscope heads of chicks alongside; Sharp-shinned Hawk grasping
lunch and being harassed by a Western Kingbird; at least 18 Great
Blue Heron nests in a rookery, some with as many as 4 chicks; a
Red-tailed Hawk nest with 3 fluffy, white chicks; Wilson's Phalarope;
Common Snipe sitting on a post as I passed 15 feet away; Bobolink; Savannah
Sparrow. At Perception Park and Meadows Campgrounds between mile
markers 26 and 27 on UT 39: A male Red-naped Sapsucker with more red
on his head than I've ever seen; a male Broad-tailed Hummingbird etching
great crescent trails in the sky above a hidden female; at one point
he perched with his back to the sun and looked like a minute emerald lit
from within; Bullock's Oriole weaving their goblet hammock; once the male and
female locked feet while airborne and tumbled the way eagles do. A dark
grouse flew out of open, deciduous woods over the roadbed where I was standing,
to a sagebrush flat. My fraction-of-a-second look just wasn't enough to
satisfy. My attempt to stalk it was completely unsuccessful. The
only thing I found where the grouse landed was the pile of Tootsie Rolls a moose
had thoughtfully left for me. Probability birding says the grouse was a
Blue.
I continued on 20 miles past Huntsville to Dry
Bread Pond and saw a Yellow-rumped Warbler snuggling down in her
partially-completed nest in a burned snag; and a Mountain Bluebird. While
watching the bluebird a Townsend's Solitaire appeared on a spruce turret within
my field of view--didn't have to work too hard for that one! I attempted
to rise to the occasion when a cooperative empid flycatcher sang and sang its
three-discrete note call and allowed me to watch it with both binoculars and
scope. I went back to the truck to listen to Stokes and determined it was
a Dusky. I heard several in the area.
Perhaps the most memorable moment of the day
occured in Perception Park in the fraction of a second when I realized a
pair of robins were chortling and chasing each other just 15 feet above my head,
and then...SMACK! Right on my raised binoculars and hand, the revenge of
the robins. I'm sure they launched their airborne revenge because they
perceived I was far more interested in a Gray Catbird than I was in
them. Thank goodness for waterproof, ruggedized binoculars, that's
what I say. I wondered for the rest of the campground
walk if I had taken a bigger hit than just on the binocs and
hand--did I look like Mrs Adams of the Adams family, a la robin--brown
hair; white streak? The truck mirror confirmed all my hair was still
brown. Note to self: add an umbrella to my birding
equipment.
Kris
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