Wasatch Mountains 7/22--FLAMMULATED OWL + 14 Year Birds

FLAMMULATED OWL, Wasatch Mountains

Our first full day of birding brought us to the Wasatch Mountains just east of Salt Lake City--twice. On our previous trip in 2015, this is where we started too. There we birded a number of spots in Big Cottonwood Canyon, but most of the year birds were at our first stop at Silver Lake. It is about a mile and half hike around the lake, which is so picturesque that a film crew was shooting a commercial there of one guy casting a line from a row boat. Hard to say what the commercial was for--we guessed either beer or pharmaceuticals.

Lincoln's Sparrow

The first bird we saw was also the most prevalent--Lincoln's Sparrow. They were everywhere along the trail, singing. In a wet spot we hit a feeding flock of birds and it was there that we had the most action, with Red-naped Sapsucker and Mountain Chickadee being the highlights, along with the Audubon's subspecies of Yellow-rumped Warbler, which used to be considered a full species and which we all hope goes back to being so.

Cassin's Finch

At a feeder we found a small group of Cassin's Finches, which look intermediate between a House and a Purple Finch.

Walking along the roadside we were surprised to find a couple of MacGillivray's Warblers, a bird whose name I can spell without looking it up, but cannot pronounce. We also had a Swainson's Thrush which I inexplicably missed this spring in NJ

The happiest and quickest find was at another spot, the Spruces Campground, where, in a stream just outside the entrance, we found an American Dipper. The dipper is not much of a bird to look at, being all slate gray. But it can walk underwater! I also prefer its less patriotic name--Water Ouzel even if I don't know what an ouzel is.
Our list for Silver Lake:

American Dipper

25 species

Mallard  8

Photo: Tom Smith

Broad-tailed Hummingbird  2

Spotted Sandpiper  2

Red-naped Sapsucker  1

Hairy Woodpecker  1

Northern Flicker (Red-shafted)  2

Western Wood-Pewee  1

Dusky Flycatcher  2

Steller's Jay  1

Common Raven  5

Violet-green Swallow  5

Cliff Swallow  10

Mountain Chickadee  2

Red-breasted Nuthatch  2

Swainson's Thrush  1

American Robin  2

Cassin's Finch  4    feeder

Pine Siskin  7

Chipping Sparrow  1

Dark-eyed Junco  1

White-crowned Sparrow  5

Lincoln's Sparrow  15    ubiquitous

MacGillivray's Warbler  3

Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon's)  1

Western Tanager  1

It was pretty hot up in the mountains, but scorching down in Salt Lake City--it reached 103 degrees there, the hottest day of the year. Naturally, after we finished birding the mountains and with some time to kill before dinner, we went down to the city to bird in the heat, albeit mostly from the air conditioned comfort of our vehicles. This time, instead of a water treatment facility, we birded what eBird called the I80--Kennecott Reclamation Ponds. Kennecott is a copper company. What they're reclaiming from that water I don't want to know but it doesn't seem to bother the birds.

Scenery

Scenery

We then moved on to what may be the most unattractive beach on the Great Salt Lake. Here we got out of our vans to view the scenery and to watch the Franklin's Gulls and American Avocets run through the clouds of brine flies with their mouths agape sucking in the insects.

After dinner we headed back to the mountains where we met up with Tim Avery of Mountain West Birding. He knows the spots for what was our first target bird FLAMMULATED OWL. We hoped to get lucky and find one before dark, so Tim stopped in a few places, got out of the van, and tapped on trees where he had seen owls roosting previously, but they had all left. So we stopped at the end of a dirt road and walked up another dirt road to where he thought we'd find them. He explained that he never goes to the same spot twice in a season so as not to stress the birds, but since he has about 40 places in the area in which he knows there are owls, that isn't a problem. He gave us some statistics while we were waiting for it to get dark and if I recall correctly, he said there were probably 40,000 Flams in Utah just judging from the number of acres of aspen in the mountains and the area each owl needs for its territory, so they're not exactly rare, but extrapolation became a standing joke for the rest of the trip.

We waited in one spot and heard nothing, then moved a couple of hundred feet and waited again until one flew in briefly giving a call and letting some in the group see a brief silhouette. We then moved down the road again and this time the one shown above came in and stood still for a good five minutes while we alternately gaped and shot photos. Ethics note: Flammulated Owls, according to Tim, are not disturbed by brief encounters with humans nor do they mind illumination--obviously since this one continued to stare at us after the light was shone on it. However, Tim didn't let the show go on too long and when the light went out we cautiously walked downhill in the moonless night.

The ride down the mountain was long and we didn't get back to our hotel until about 11:30. It was a long but fruitful day.