We arrived fairly late Friday evening and didn't really have a chance to go birding until late Saturday morning, when we recruited another guy to hiking with us on the Horsethief Canyon trail. He soon got tired of following us all over the country and stopped, sensibly, with a magazine to read. Anthony and I continued hiking over very rough terrain, hoping to reach a point in the lake where we had seen a large flock of gulls. After perhaps an hour we got there, only to find that there were only Franklin's and a few Ring-billed Gulls.
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| Franklin's Gull |
We kept scanning, however, and soon found a small group of terns within the larger flock. Most of them were classic Forster's, with isolated dark eye patches and pale wingtips. There was one in breeding plumage, which struck us as odd, since all the rest were in non-breeding plumage. It soon dawned upon us that it was actually a Common Tern, a lifer!
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| Common Tern (center). Note the gray belly and extensively dark primaries. Although not apparent in this photo, the bill was dark red with an extensive dark tip. Photo by Anthony |
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| My poor photo of two of the Common Terns. Notice the diagnostic dark carpal bar on the non-breeding individual on the right. |
A bit more scanning turned up two more Commons, these in non-breeding or juvenile plumage. In a valiant attempt to get better pics I waded out to my waist, all to no avail as I was still too far away for good photos.
We reluctantly started back, groaning at the fact that we had nearly three miles of hiking to get back to camp. The misery was offset when, part way back, I noticed an unfamiliar butterfly. It was bright orange like a Sleepy Orange, but had black only on the front corners of its wings. I not-so-casually mentioned that it might be a Tailed Orange and sprinted off up the sumac-covered slope to try and photograph it. We soon succeeded and confirmed our suspicions, it was a Tailed Orange! Luckily it was quite cooperative, letting us get great pics.
I encouraged Anthony to try to get flight shots, since it was not markedly different from a Sleepy Orange on the underside. I failed miserably on this, but Anthony was successful in getting some great photos of this seventh state record.
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| Along with the limited black in the wings, the wing shape is also different from Sleepy Orange. Tailed has distinctly "squared-off" wings, unlike the Sleepy's more rounded wingtips. Photo by Anthony |
It seemed that every patch of exposed rock had its own Prairie Fence Lizard. This one sat quietly pondering life, which turned out to be a small grasshopper, which it caught and ate.
Joseph
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