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| Sunrise reflections at Arches National Park UT |
During the first half of the month my husband Lloyd and I drove out to southeastern Utah to do some dark sky gazing with his telescope plus hiking, exploring and visiting ancient Puebloan culture sites. Traveling through Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado offered lots of nature sights along the way too.
Perhaps my favorite part was seeing so many blooming desert flowers in the fall after the El Nino-caused downpours southeastern UT has had in late September and early October. The names of these flowers and grasses delighted me as much as their blooms: broom snakeweed, rabbitbrush, tansyleaf tansyaster, bastard sage, saltlover bush, scarlet trumpet, Mormon tea and threadlead ragwort among them. It was a delight to get to know them. We were sorry to see the flooding that ensued in Bluff UT after we returned though. Climate change devastation continues.
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| Minnesota bluffs wear muted fall colors |
Now that growth has quieted and the songbirds have migrated through, I look forward to November hikes that reveal hidden rocks and geological formations, clearer views of the rivers and ravines through the leafless trees, the massive swan migrations, frost-tipped leaves along the trails and the cool embrace of late fall. The hiking is always special during these sere months before the snow.
I hope you get out and take in all that our beautiful world has to offer!
Footnote: after a cortisone shot in September, my bum foot is much better. I’m back up to 5 mile hikes and able to climb and scramble again. I am much relieved and looking forward to getting out much more again!
Plant Life:
- false rue anemone (bloomed)
Blooming false rue anemone 10/23
Beaver Creek Valley State Park, MN - chickweed
- Drummond's aster
- hairy aster
- black-eyed Susan
- evening primrose
- daisy fleabane
- fern, bracken
- fern, lady
- fern, intermediate wood
- fern, maidenhair
- fern, rockcap
- fern, spinulose wood
- sweet cecily
- Virginia waterleaf
- wintergreen
Wildlife:
- bald eagle
I spy humans! - blue jay
- cardinal
- sandhill crane
- cedar waxwing
- black-capped chickadee
- brown creeper
- crow
- egret
- golden-crowned kinglet
- goldfinch
- Canada goose
- dark-eyed junco
- white-breasted nuthatch
So do I!
Image - Kris Lawson - pelican
- raven
- fox sparrow
- white-throated sparrow
- trumpeter swan
- yellow-rumped warbler
- redheaded woodpecker
- hairy woodpecker
- red-bellied woodpecker
- deer, white-tailed
- chipmunk
- autumn meadowhawk dragonfly
Fungi/Lichen/Moss
- moss, pincushion
Shining firmoss - moss, red-stemmed feather
- moss, juniper haircap
- shining firmoss
- moss, woodsy-thyme
- lichen, pixie cup
- lichen, starburst
- mushroom, violet-toothed polypore
- mushroom, false chanterelle
- mushroom, common inkcap
- mushroom, honey
- mushroom, puffball
- mushroom, turkey tail
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| Ancient Puebloan buildings, Butler Wash, Blanding UT |
Travel Observations - Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah
Plant Life
- alfalfa
Indian Paintbrush - aster, aromatic
- aster, false hairy goldenaster
- aster, hoary tansyaster
- aster, tansyleaf tansyaster
- bastardsage
- black brush
- bluet, prairie
- coneflower
- desert rhubarb
- evening primrose, Hooker’s
- evening primrose, whitest
Hooker's primrose - fleabane, spreading
- goldenaster hairy false
- grass, blue grama
- grass, big and little bluestem
- grass, burro
- grass, California buckwheat
- grass, crested wheatgrass
- grass, nineawn pappusgrass
- Indian-paintbrush, Wyoming
- Mormon tea
- pricklypear, plains
- pricklypear, tulip
Broom snakeweed - rabbitbrush, rubber
- ragwort, threadleaf (aka sand wash groundsel)
- sagebrush, big.
- saltbush, four-wing
- saltbush, spiny
- scarlet trumpet
- snakeweed, broom
- yucca, narrowleaf
- butterfly, buckeye
Common buckeye butterfly - butterfly, common chackered skipper
- butterfly, monarch
- butterfly, orange sulfur
- butterfly, painted lady
- butterfly, Reakirt’s blue
- butterfly, western pygmy blue
- gopher, pocket
- lizard, desert spiny
- lizard, gecko
- sheep, bighorn
- magpie
- raven
- sparrow, white-crowned
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| A cascade of growth down the canyon wall UT |
Hikes below in colored, bold type or underlined have links to previous posts OR descriptions and/or location of the trails found online.
Great River Bluffs State Park, Nodine, MN; Beaver Creek Valley State Park, Caledonia MN; Bluffside Park, Winona MN; Levis Trow Mounds Park, Black River Falls, WI; Yellow River State Forest, Harper’s Ferry IA; Riverside Park, La Crosse WI Colorado National Monument, Grand Junction, Colorado; Canyonlands National Park Islands in the Sky District, Moab UT; Arches National Park, Moab UT; Hovenweep National Monument, Montezuma Creek UT; Fisher Towers, Moab UT; Bluff River Trail, Bluff UT; Ballroom Cave Ruin, Blanding UT; Wolfman Panel, Bluff UT
See you on the trails!
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| Dark sky viewing achieved - the Milky Way |
The "I Spy on the Trails" column is a phenology (the study of seasonal changes in plants and animals) journal to chronicle the weather, plant life and wildlife I observe while hiking year-round. It is very useful in helping me compare observations from year-to-year. The column is published monthly from September through April and then twice-a-month from May through August when warm weather brings the natural world back to vibrant life.
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| The view at Levis Trow Mounds Image - Kris Lawson |
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