First Wednesday - more birds to id

First Wednesday - more birds to id

One of the more common birds here is the Dark-eyed Junco. Beside the dark eyes, they have distinctive rust colored spot on their back; they are very small. You may have seen them in earlier photos.

The next for today is the House Finch. I think I mentioned it earlier, but this is a nice photo.

The other new one for today, three angles, is the Black-headed Grosbeak (male):

On Wednesday afternoon, after some more snow and sleet, it cleared off a bit, so that Larry and Annette could join the 4-H group they work with to 'pick up highway trash' on a 2 mile stretch of Highway 24 west of Loa. Here is a photo of Larry hard at work with the Jeep.

It was another good day in Utah!  ;-)

First Tuesday - Snow and more

First Tuesday

Snow and more

Before the snow came in the afternoon, the squirrel was trying to get at the suet feeder (for birds!).

See, it is supposed to be for the birds, the Clark's Nutcracker, to be specific.

Snow on the bird feeder... mid-afternoon...

And, a little later, the storm was down in the valley and over in the Park.

What an interesting day!  ;-)

First May Monday in Utah - bird watching 2

First May Monday in Utah

bird watching 2

Well, we started the morning with snow on the ground - at about 7 a.m. - by 10 it was all melted away from around the house and up on the mountain, a ways.

OK, the birds, today. A close up of the little pine siskin, from yesterday, but up close; note dots on breast.

This was one that Larry and Annette had not seen yet this year; a female evening grosbeak

And again, with a ground squirrel.

The red headed house finch was interesting - a little more colorful.

During the afternoon, we had snow flurries a number of times. Hard to catch in photo; here is best one (out the right one of the three south faceing windows).

We all were working on projects. One of Annette's was to read the draft of my 2nd novel and make suggestions, which she did. Seems to be enjoying the read, on her Kindle!  ;-) THANKS!  ;-)

It was a good day!  ;-)

Mother's Day - First Sunday in Utah

Mother's Day

First May Sunday in Utah

Our first full day here in Utah is Mother's Day as well as our first Sunday. We got the daisy bouquet in Loa on the way in yesterday. Nancy had brought a combination of Anniversary and Birthday presents, so we had a little party.

A photo of the bookends, Larry, and Annette's hat, among other things.

To the right, in the photo above, is the first of three windows along the south side of the house. In addition to the mountain across the small valley, the area right outside the window has bird feeders and trees and other 'decorations' that make viewing really fun. This visit, already, there are many different varieties of birds and ground squirrels. I'll share a few, from time to time, as I can catch them.

Here is a generic view out this first window.

You can see the red humming bird feeder. It is just coming into their season... we've only seen a couple so far.

To the left, is the thistle feeder for the pine siskins... very small birds.

The blueish pinyon jays come by, from time to time, in small flocks, and scare the others away, for a few minutes. The like to eat from the suet feeders, also.

I caught three of the jays, here, just sitting. Just the beginning. Lots of fun.

A very good day!  ;-)

Anasazi Heritage Center - BLM - Dolores, CO

Anasazi Heritage Center 

BLM - Dolores, CO

Website

We visited the Center this morning, after staying overnight in nearby Cortez. Here we are just arriving.

The building was very nice; over looks the McPhee Reservoir.

This center focuses on the Anasazi in the 4 corners area, the Northern San Juan, in this case.

The educational displays are very up to date and most interesting; Here is one through the ages.

Another had drawers you pull out for more information.

There are computer stations and video displays around the area. Here as long view.

Note in the foreground right, you are looking down into a replica of a pit-house. See it:

Here Nancy is looking at a display about an archeological dig.

We were fascinated by the "Small pots" display.

We really enjoyed our brief visit; might stop by again sometime.

We went up through Moab - we had not been there before. It was 92 degrees... not pleasant. We went on up to Green River, expecting to stay the night. But, we ended up getting there real early... and realized it was only about to two hours to Teasdale - so we cancelled the motel and came on in. Larry is here; Annette will be back from Seattle late tonight.

Here is a photo off the back deck late this afternoon:

It was a very nice day!  ;-)

Half Way on Vacation Trip to Utah

Half Way on Vacation Trip to Utah

We are at the end of our second day of a four day 'vacation trip' to Utah to spend a couple of weeks or so with Annette and Larry. We stayed in Amarillo, TX, last night, and are in Cortez, CO, tonight. We will be doing some sight-seeing and museum visits before we arrive at their house on Boulder Mountain on Sunday afternoon.

As we came back from supper tonight, to our Holiday Inn Express motel, here was the sight we saw!

Were no cars coming, I had to stand in the street, use my telephoto a little, but it came out pretty neat!

Snow-capped Rocky Mountains are still hard to beat for visual stimulation!  ;-)

It was a very good day!  ;-)

Visited Dewey Bald geocache across the dam

Visited Dewey Bald geocache across the dam

I needed to put a new log book in the cache on Dewey Bald - had put it out Apr 2007 (I had originally be place in 2002 - nine years ago - over 850 visits since.

I ended up writing an Examiner.com article about it, with the pictures in a slide show - check it out:

http://www.examiner.com/cultureal-heritage-in-springfield-mo/geocaching-contributes-to-ozarks-cultural-heritage-do-you-geocache

They are making repairs on the sod on the front of the dam. There is one way traffic for two weeks. Cannot see a thing driving by. They have stop lights up. Real dark cloud was in place, but here is photo I took waiting.

While I sat, I used the telephoto on the camera so you can see the level of the lake on the dam - and the new visitor center under construction on right.

It was a good day, actually!  ;-)