Two bighorn sheep we nearly ran into
We were lucky enough to have several close encounters of the wild kind this trip. Here’s a brief list of some of the wild things we saw:
Bighorn Sheep – And lots of them! And close up! We saw several just off the road the first time through the park. The second time, they were IN the road and we had to stop and wait for them. We tried to roll down the window so Keanon could take a picture of the one looking in his window, but it was a little too close for comfort and he didn’t get the shot off.
Another shot of the bighorn sheep
Angry Birds – Actually they were wild turkeys. The cool thing was that there were 2 or 3 baby ones trailing along behind the mama. Again right in front of us so we had to stop and let them go by. They went into the bushes right by the turn onto Cedar Rd.
Mr. Fox – Again, crossing the road.
A Bobcat!
Actually that one was kind of funny. We were riding the bus back from our hike in the river. Since there were so many animals out, our bus driver was pointing out each time he saw something and we would all look, which was happening regularly as we went down the road. As we neared the grotto, I saw it first, over near the trail by the river and shouted out: “A bobcat!”. Of course everyone on the bus looked where I was pointing. Then everyone laughed as they realized it was indeed a bobcat, but not THAT kind of bobcat. Rather a distant cousin to the skip-loader taking a rest from its trail reconstruction duties. Haha made you look!
Stellar’s Jay
Stellar’s Jay
I saw this one on my walk over by the Oden’s property. Perhaps this is no big deal and maybe you all have seen these before. But I thought it looked so cool that I remembered to look it up and find out what it was after we got home. It had an all blue body and a black crested head.
Mule Deer (with and without racks) – We saw lots of deer in the park, including several bucks. We were there later in the evening and the court of the patriarchs was pretty quiet so there seemed to be lots of animals about.
Lizards
Blue Bellied Lizard
Poor lizards. Kids and lizards make for lots of lizards running around without tails. I hope this blue belly was just pretending to be asleep so the kids would go away, but I haven’t seen many lizards sunning their undersides before…
And more… Butterflies, ROUSes, Ostriches, Mice, etc.