Spencer, Camas NWR

On Monday I drove to Spencer, Idaho to do research for an article about the fire opals that are found there.  Instead of going on the main roads, I went cross-country and covered two scenic byways, the Fort Henry Historical Byway and the Lost Gold Trails Loop.  My first major sighting was this Belted Kingfisher that had been hit on the bridge crossing the Henrys Fork of the Snake River.

 

A little farther down the road, I flushed a Great Blue Heron hunting frogs and mice in the tall grass.

 

 

Once on the desert any water even the mud puddles attracted birds like this Sage Thrusher and sparrow.

 

This buck Pronghorn in a pasture on the green grass, but keeping a fence between him and the cattle.

 

 

 

Not far from the pronghorn was this young Red-tailed hawk hunting mice in a meadow.

 

Once in Spencer, I visited all four shops, interviewing many people.  Spencer fire opal is a precious gem and is found in layers of common opal.  This picture shows the layers of the rock.  The story about the opal, stores and mines should run in the on-line newspaper, the East Idaho News, next week.

 

One of the stores has a mini-mine where they bring rock and put it in a pile to allow would-be miners to hunt for pieces of opal.  I spent about two hours there and found a few pieces.

 

On the way home near Dubois, I found this young Burrowing owl hiding behind the sagebrush near a burrow.

 

My last stop of the day was at Camas National Wildlife Refuge where this White-tailed buck was hiding in the tall grass.  He would only lift his head high enough for me to see his eyes when I whistled at him.

 

 

 

Just another day spent in the wilds of Idaho.

Fishing reports

You can follow my fishing reports on my fishing blog by clicking on the link to in on the left.  I will report my fishing activities each week.

Thanks,

Bill

Market Lake birds

Last Friday I slipped out to Market Lake for a few hours and saw 87 species of birds and got some good pictures of some of them.  Highlight were a Great Egret and several Black Terns.  I did not get good pictures of the Black terns, but at least you will be able to identify them.

On the way to Market Lake I stopped to see if the Burrowing owlets were out of the nest yet.  They were not, but the mother came over to check me out.

 

At Market Lake willets were on the edge of the ponds.

 

A cormorant was fishing in the deep water near the road.  It is funny that they often swim with most of their body under the water.

 

Western grebes have started nesting so the males and juvies are swimming around lonely.

 

Forester terns were all over the place - oops - I forgot to load a poor picture of the Black tern.

 

The Black-crowned Night-herons kept flying over the ponds and marshes.

 

The color-clashing Ruddy duck males were everywhere while their mates are probably nesting somewhere in the reeds.

 

And finally as I was leaving Market Lake a Great egret decided to say "hi" to me.  It was the first one of the season.

Just a few enjoyable hours spent in the wilds of Idaho.  Have a great week.

Mountain Goat hike

Yesterday for to celebrate my wife's birthday, she wanted to hike to the Lower Palisades Lake near Swan Valley, Idaho.  She had done it the week before with friends and they had seen some Mountain goats and I had expressed a desire to see and photograph them.  We got a late start but had a great day even with some rain showers freshening up us on the way back down the trail.
On the way in past a couple of homes, we saw this beautiful peacock.  It was displaying when we first saw it, but would not after I got my camera ready.

 

We also saw three mule deer as we drove to the trailhead.  Two of them were budding bucks with their growing antlers.

 

 

About  two miles into the hike I heard rocks falling over the roar of the creek and caught this nanny jumping from a ledge, across a fallen tree to a rock where it landed perfectly.

 

There were eight Mountain goats in this herd with four small babies that one biker would call "little fur balls."

 

We enjoyed a lot of early spring flowers along the way.

 

Palisades Creek was roaring down through the canyon caused by melting snow and recent rains.

 

 

My wife led the way up and down the trail as we hiked 8.2 miles  for the day.

 

On the way back down from the Lower Palisades Lake that had four pair of Barrow's Goldeneyes and two pair of Common Mergansers on it, we once again ran into the Mountain goats as they rested in the rain on the hard rocks of the canyon.

 

 

I loved spending the day with my wife in the wilds of Idaho.