Friday, May 13, 2022

Friday the 13th!

Despite the date, it was a good day – in between the bad weather – intermittent snow and all day wind. As soon as I got to Slough Creek today, it started snowing heavily for about 90 minutes. When it quit, I decided to go to the Lamar Valley to see what was happening there. While talking to Carol, a friend from Mancos, CO at Fisherman's turnout, she suddenly started and was looking up the hill across the road. There, a grizzly had just appeared about 300 yards away:




At the end of the day, as I was driving back, I ran into a bear jam. This was the cause:







In between, there was a wounded moose - we think the wolves got it. It may not survive. And a visit to the falcon nest – it's empty for now. And more grizzly bears. And wolves, including puppies. I couldn't count them as they were just a wriggling mass of black a mile away. And the wind was howling, shaking the scope. You couldn't tell where one pup ended and the next started.

For John and Deb – Last year we were at Lamar Canyon East turnout looking at the Swinson's hawk in the crevice in the cliff and I decided that I needed the 115 objective because the 95 was too dark with the extender. Well, the hawk is back and this is how things look with the new objective and extender:




Much better, I would say. This was at about 100x zoom. The wind made any more zoom impossible.




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