Utah Road Trip (Early October)

[Zoroark]

Trip report: https://ebird.org/tripreport/76508

My mother wanted to go on another trip, this time to the Great Salt Lake area.

Areas that we will likely check out:

• St. George
  • Quail Creek State Park
  • Tonaquint Nature Center
• Salt Lake City
  • Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge
  • Antelope Island
  • Farmington Bay
  • Utah Lake

Other places we're considering:

• Bear Lake Wildlife Management Area
• Fontenelle Reservoir
• Fish Springs
• Pahranagat
• Kolob Reservoir
• Snow Canyon

We're likely not going to Zion, Ouray, or Lamoille Canyon due to time constraints. We haven't decided where we're stopping on the way back yet.

Here are the target birds for the year list, of which many I also need photos. Some of these are only in a few specific locations.

• Black-billed Magpie
• Ring-necked Pheasant
• California Quail
• Sandhill Crane
• Marbled Godwit
• Caspian Tern (new)
• Long-billed Curlew (new)
• Rough-legged Hawk (new)
• Ruffed Grouse
• Evening Grosbeak
• American Dipper
• Canyon Wren
• California Condor (new)
• A variety of owl species

[Zoroark]

Today, we drove from Henderson to Beaver and made two stops for birds: Tonaquint Nature Center and Quail Lake. I also submitted a few incidental checklists along the way. Nothing new, although there were a lot of Abert's Towhees at the first stop.

[Birds are cool]

I hope you see some lifers.

[Zoroark]

I've been getting to the hotel pretty exhausted, and some of my lists aren't final due to having too many specks to look at in photos.

Here are the more fruitful stops in the last two days:

• Minersville Reservoir
• Utah Lake State Park
• Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge (with thousands of ducks)
• Entrance road to Bear River

7 hours ago, Birds are cool said:

I hope you see some lifers.

None yet. I had a chance at some curlews earlier but they didn't show up. Several firsts of the year, though:

• Black-billed Magpie (photo + audio lifer)
• California Quail (photo lifer)
• Ring-necked Pheasant (photo lifer)
• Sandhill Crane

[Zoroark]

Yesterday, we went up to Idaho to visit the Bear Lake Wildlife Management Area, which underwent a controlled burn just before we got there. There weren't very many birds there because of that, unfortunately. FOYs included Ruffed Grouse and Vesper Sparrow. Here's a list from an area that wasn't burned.

Today, we went to Farmington Bay and Bountiful Lake, then headed back south to Cedar City. A stop at Mount Timpanogos Park brought me a photo lifer/FOY Barrow's Goldeneye and FOY American Dipper.

The other dozen or so lists can be seen on the trip report.

We're going back to Henderson tomorrow, with a couple final stops on the way.

Edited October 8, 2022 by Zoroark

[Zoroark]

We returned Saturday evening. Lists aren't yet finalized, but here's how the trip went. I didn't get any lifers on the trip, but I did see a lot of birds on my "legacy" list (ones I hadn't seen in over 20 years—only 10 birds left on that list now), and I photographed many of them too. Notable sightings include:

• Juniper Titmouse (audio lifer)
• Black-billed Magpie (FOY + photo lifer + audio lifer)
• California Quail (FOY + photo lifer)
• Ring-necked Pheasant (FOY + photo lifer)
• Sandhill Crane (FOY)
• Ruffed Grouse (FOY)
• Vesper Sparrow (FOY)
• American Dipper (FOY + a better photo)
• Barrow's Goldeneye (FOY + photo lifer)
• Evening Grosbeak (FOY + photo lifer)

That's nine firsts for the year, bringing me up to 337, and five photo lifers. I also added at least 85 species to my Utah list and at least 34 to my Idaho list.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Zoroark

[Zoroark]

Deduct one from my year list. What I thought was a Vesper Sparrow was actually a Savannah Sparrow.

[Birds are cool]

6 minutes ago, Caley Thomas 2.0 said:

On the bright side, and with my rose-tinted glasses back on, at least I added about 20 to my year list and met a lot of cool birders.  That, and sweated out about 10 pounds probably, lol (free sauna, woohoo!)

Nice!

[Charlie Spencer]

2 hours ago, Birds are cool said:

Nice!

Cross-posted.