Grand Teton, day 3

Day three in Grand Teton National Park and we needed to both get another walk in and complete the loop road to take in all the sights. We decided to do the Bradley and Taggart Lakes trail (all the trails can be got from the Ranger Visitors Centres dotted about, we bought 'Yellowstone and Grand Teton National parks - Top Trails', ISBN 0-89997-368-X, but already the habitats are evolving post fire so not everything in the book is fresh up to date).

Heading up the trail you pass through some light woodland behind a corral then over some noisy fast flowing rapids, heading uphill alongside the river and then on to first Taggart lake and the Bradley lake.

This area is recovering from being burned through in the late 1980's and is a combination of fresh Lodgepole Pines and burned out stumps, which provide ideal perches for lots of the birds of the area. This Savannah Sparrow, nevadensis was one such:
















We saw various birds of prey but they were distant from the trail and hard to distinguish. This Yellow Warbler closely resembles a race only found in Southern Florida, so it can't be one of them, therefore what indeed is it?


















As you rise beyond Taggart Lake the view back across is dramatic:
















One thing that perplexed us throughout our stay in the Grand Tetons was the complete lack of waterfowl. There was just nothing about. We'd picked up a copy of common birds in the area from the Rangers Visitor Centre, which lists Trumpeter Swans and others as common, but we saw none. We did however spot this Green-tailed Towhee off the trail:





















And of course lots and lots of smaller mammals stuffing their faces, including this Red Squirrel:















and this Uinta Ground Squirrel (click on the pic he's really very cute!):















Having completed the walk from Taggart to Bradley and heading back we spotted this multi-coloured Lazuli Bunting singing from the treetops:



















Having completed the 5.8mile 550ft elevation trail, we hopped in the car to explore the rest of the park. Next stop Menors Ferry Historic Area. This place is absolutely full of birds. It's a very small footprint to explore with some historic information, a refurbished historic cabin, etc. but the number of birds was amazing.

We spotted a strange (to us) looking bird on a dead-tree. I only realised what I'd photographed when we got back to the UK and I trawled through the (1,200) photos we'd taken. My first ever Waxwing, this one a Cedar Waxwing:














There were three or four of these Waxwings. They took off from their tree hovered over the river, catching passing insects and then glided back to their perches. I don't know how long the feeding is this easy for them, but they really did look completely relaxed, taking off every now and then to eat again. Also above the river flew a large number of Tree, Cliff and Barn swallows, darting around feeding. One strange looking bird hove into view, with a wing-shape I'd not seen before:















The local Ranger guessed it might be a Shrike but we weren't so sure, the very visible white patches on the under-wing and the white throat markings being very distinctive. I had no idea what it was and could find nothing like it in the bird of prey section of our field guide (National geographic - Birds of North America). Some more experienced birders at the Northants Yahoo Bird Group identified it as a Common Nighthawk (known as a Nightjar in the UK).

By the cabins I spotted this Hairy Woodpecker female with mouth full of food for the nest.















We followed where she flew to and discovered that her young had fledged, here she is feeding her youngster:















The youngster was very cute, with under-developed beak and wings but with a well developed begging call!

Next stop on the loop was Blacktail Ponds overlook, where we saw Red-tailed Hawk, Bald Eagle, Osprey, Red-winged Blackbird, American Goldfinch, lots of sparrows and Cedar Waxwing. That was just meandering along the top and observing what was in the air or settled just down on the ground below. The view of the Tetons was excellent too:
















Next stop was to have a look at Two Ocean Lake, our last chance of waterfowl, before hitting the road again the next day. The road to the lake however is 'rough' and our rental car wasn't up to the journey, so it's a 4x4 when we return!

In the river by the turning however there was the most impressive Beaver lodge:
















This one being at least 3 times the size of anything else we'd seen in either park! For our final stop of the day we headed back around the road loop to Leigh Lake to walk alongside the lake. This Common Merganser female was teaching her youngsters to dive for food, while we watched, in the area of rapids between the two lakes, and away from most of the humans:














Watching mum dive followed by 5 or 6 of the juveniles was very cute, they were clearly learning how to feed; though not all of them had mastered the 'dive and follow mum' technique by the time we headed on.