Becka's Wild Wildlife Adventures

As you know, I try to ditch indoor monotony for outdoor adventuring whenever I can. The last two weeks have been remarkably productive, but I've also managed to stumble around outside a bit, and I've run into wildlife I haven't seen before, which is freaking awesome!

First off, the fam and I went to Yellowstone a several weeks ago, and I finally saw a bear! One of the great tragedies of my life, up until then, what that I hadn't seen a bear in the wild. This black bear was right off the side of the road, Liz got a better picture of it, because she got to see it closer, but this is still awesome to me.
Tragedy struck later, when we missed seeing a grizzly bear by a few hours. A grizzly bear!

A few weeks ago I began this habit of wandering up to First Dam and seeing what they're releasing every night. It's geeky, but it changes from week to week, which I think is very cool. Anyways, there are quite a few birds there, and a lot of them don't look like they should (I've posted many of these on Facebook, so please forgive the redundancy).
Here is what a Mallard Duck should look like:

Here's what the one's at first dam look like:

Note, there is some serious differences in plumage. I read up on it a little bit, and according to Sibley (quite the authority on birds), "The many domestic variations [of mallards] may cause confusion." Indeed, I was quite confused. I plan on researching exactly why domestic varieties are so different, and why it is advantageous for them to change. Sibley explains it a little, in discussing domestic waterfowl he says, "Interbreeding produces a bewildering variety of plumages and sizes; some bear little resemblance to the parent species." My question is how do they manage to reproduce if they don't look like their species?

There are also some Greater White-fronted Geese. I was pretty excited to see these, because I hadn't seen any before.

It took me a while to figure out what these birds were, I think this is a Swan Goose (also known as a Chinese Goose). I was really scared for a while, because they're goose-sized, but have a bill like Mute Swans, and I'm still scared of Mute Swans (I almost stabbed one the other day with a pitchfork).

Last week I got to spend the day in Ogden, and I took the time to revisit some of my favorite places. Make fun of me if you will, but I went to Weber State first, and I really enjoyed it. I went through all the buildings I used to spend time in, I even did some note-typing in the library. Then I headed up the some of my favorite hiking trails. While I was revisiting old things, I decided to shake it up a little and hike a familiar place from an unfamiliar route. I hiked Waterfall Canyon, then went up the side of the waterfall cathedral, over the ridge, into Malan's Basin and up the Malan's Peak...and it was awesome! While I was scrambling up the mountain without a visible trail in my soggy Chacos, I was thinking about what a bad idea I'd committed myself to (because scrambling up is much easier than scrambling down), then I got to the top of the ridge and remembered what a great idea that hike was. It was really a beautiful view of a place I really like.

Anyways, my first brush with wildlife was with a rattlesnake. I was just cruising along, when I saw something yellow coiled up on the trail. If you've run into a rattlesnake before, then you know how it makes your heart stop for a second (unless you're Scott, in which case you're overwhelmed with the desire to pick the snake up). Once my heart started going again, I started trying to figure out a way to get past the snake. I thought about back-tracking and hiking up the stream bed, but then I got a better idea. I threw sticks at the snake until it moved off the trail. I might have stumbled upon a yellowish Western Rattlesnake, but I kind of think I actually saw a Midget Faded Rattlesnake. Its a subspecies of the Western Rattlesnake, and it really looks like what I saw. Awesome, right?
(This picture, the that of the regular mallard, bobcats and poorwill come from Utah's Division of Wildlife Resource's web page, all others were taken with my camera or phone)

The hike continued to stay awesome. A few minutes later my heart nearly jumped out of my chest when I ran into an Eastern Racer. Looking at it, I decided it probably wasn't venomous, it didn't have any bright colors or markings, and it didn't make any alarming noises (venomous snakes really do their best to make you scared). However, I was still frightened, so I yelled at it and threw more sticks until it moved.

The only other frightening moment after that was seeing, well actually not seeing a Spruce Grouse. I eventually saw it when it flew out right in front of me. It was nice getting to Malan's Basin, it's one of my Happy Places.

I also saw some blooming Prickly Pears. I think it's cool that such a prickly plant has such pretty flowers.

On to the real adventure. Monday I decided I must hike Mt. Logan. I'd had an unproductive day and really just needed to accomplish something. I accomplished something, but it wasn't reaching Mt. Logan. I missed the trail I should have turned off on, but found it on my way back down. I decided to go as far up the right path as I could before the sun set, and I ended up turning back right at sunset. It was really a fortuitous decision, because almost as soon as I turned back I saw a bobcat! Well, the paw of a bobcat. I was momentarily frightened it was a mountain lion, but it was far too small for a mountain lion. It creeped really quietly across the path, then just sat in the brush beside the trail. I was pretty freaked out, so I yelled and moved as loudly as I could toward where it was in hopes that it would move further up the side of the hill. It took a while, but eventually it moved and I ran past as fast as I could. Here's what a bobcat looks like.
According to the Division of Natural Resources, bobcats are rarely seen because of their secretive nature, but they are very common from Mexico to Canada. So really, it was super cool for me to see part of one. However, it got me all freaked out that I would be eaten by something. One of my friends had told me earlier that there were mountain lions up that particular canyon and that I shouldn't hike alone. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that mountain lions could be almost anywhere and I'd never let that inhibit my hiking before, so why start now? (Also, you never see wildlife when hiking with others because you're less observant and noisier) Well, that type of reasoning seemed down-right dumb to me as I started down the trail in the dark. Based on what little I know about mountain lions, I knew that I should be noisy, so as not to startle them. I also knew that if I found one I should stand up as tall as I can, to make myself look big and not anything like prey. Beyond that, everything else I thought that evening was conjecture. It was getting cold though, so I needed to keep moving, and I did have my headlamp in my pack, so I decided to run. This seemed a little foolish to me, as most mountain lion attacks are on trail runners and mountain bikers, but I was cold. So I ran down Dry Canyon clapping my hands periodically and singing (really kind of hooting and wooing, as I was also trying to run).

It's odd, but somehow, when faced with challenging outdoor situations, the only songs I can remember are church hymns and children's songs. When I was trying to paddle my way off a beach at Lake Powell, the only thing I could think to sing as I paddled into the wind was "Praise to the Man." Monday I had the song that goes "I often go walking through meadows of clovers, and I gather armfuls of blossoms of blue" stuck in my head. Once I started running I up-graded to "The Spirit of God" and eventually progressed to "When the Saints Go Marching In" and "Do Your Ears Hang Low?" This seems a little silly, but I didn't pass anyone else in that canyon until I got to the very bottom. If there was anyone else there, they were hiding from the girl running, clapping and singing "Do your ears hang low? Do they wobble to and fro? Can you tie them in a knot? Can you tie them in a bow?" And if there were any mountain lions, I scared them away.

Eventually I tripped and fell and decided the headlamp was not illuminating enough of the topography for me to continue down the rockier stretches of the canyon at that pace.

That turned out to be a good idea because I saw a type of bird I've never seen before, boo ya! They're actually pretty ugly birds called the Common Poorwills, a member of the Goatsucker family. These birds repeatedly scared me. They just sit on trail at night, and their eyes would light up in the beam of my headlamp, in that light their eyes were red and creepy, and they didn't move like almost any other animal would. I ended up almost stepping on them several times, but still, it was cool.
I also saw these ginormous spiders who's eyes also lit up in the beam of my headlamp. They were seriously like 3 inches long. I have no idea what kind of spider they are, but I will not be camping in Dry Canyon without a tent, ever.

So there you have it, some of my dorky adventures have been blogged about. More to come later.