Salt Lake

We spent a week in Salt Lake visiting Ken's son and family and doing some birding.

It was a chilly week, highs in the mid 50's but the mountains were beautiful in their fall colors and snow capped peaks.  We took a couple of drives along the Alpine Loop which is in a National Forest so the restrooms were locked but some of the picnic areas were open that didn't make sense. 

We went out to Antelope Island State Park and they didn't charge the usual $10 entry fee since the National Parks were closed we thought that was nice. The Salt Lake is really low so it is hard to see the birds out on it but there were hundreds of eared grebes and some avocets we also saw the bison and antelope on the island.

We found another nice state park to visit the This Is The Place Heritage Park where historical buildings have been moved in and many of the buildings have a reenactor to tell you the story of the building and Mormon history.

 

Before we left Salt Lake the National Parks and Refuges reopened and we took the opportunity to visit Bear River Bird Migration Refuge the duck hunters also took advantage of the reopening to head out to the refuge.  I don't understand a refuge being open to hunters!  We did enjoy the ponds filled with

Eared Grebes, Western Grebes, Clark's Grebes and some ducks but mostly Coots.  We also saw lots of American Pipets along the road side.

On our drive out of the refuge Ken spotted this Badger, we had never seen a badger in the wild before.

We are now in a warmer part of Utah for a week, Hurricane, UT and the landscape looks awesome.