I had a short encounter with a great horned owl last week while hiking through the slickrock domes of the Sand Flats Rec. Area. Between the sandstone domes lie short, sandy canyon-like areas full of vegetation including pinyon and juniper trees. I scrambled up the rock to one of these areas and started into it past a large Utah juniper when I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye and a GHO flew past without a sound. He flew up the little canyon area and over some trees out of site. I pulled out my camera and kept walking hoping I might see where he landed. I got to a clearing at the end with a few more trees nearby but couldn't tell if he was around. A second later he took off out of a pinyon and I managed to get a distant shot of him.
A couple of days later I got out hiking around some rocky outcrops out in the desert, really good packrat habitat, and found the pelvis and part of a spine of a cottontail tucked up inside one.
Packrats are cool, I could spend days looking for their middens just to see what they collect from the desert.
It's been getting pretty cold here the last few weeks and we went out camping around the 17th-19th of Nov. and that was the last time I saw a lizard out and about. They seem to have all gone to wherever they go for the winter.
We had our first snow storm down here in the valleys on the 24th. I headed out for the wetlands that morning hoping to find some fresh tracks and see who was out and about in the snow.
There was only one set of fresh tracks.
The 1-2-1 sequence in the trail is pretty common for a loping striped skunk and a close examination of a single print shows the long nails as well.
On my way out I caught a glimpse of a pair of muledeer moving through the woods like a couple of ghosts. They had seen me first and just seemed to evaporate.
