It has been more than a year since my last post.
And I don’t see how I could possibly catch up the last year of happenings so I won’t even try now for now at least. It’s possible that I may fill in later.
Let’s just start from now.
I’ve been camping recently on the east side of the Cascade mountains, near Sisters, oregon. It’s ponderosa pine forest, and I think it burned at low to moderate intensity in the Milli fire of 2017.
When camping in a dry area, I often put water out for birds and it gets discovered very quickly.
These hatch year western bluebirds came to bathe. There were many (20?) and when the flock came through they filled the water dish. Here is one stepping out of the water and another flying in.
And here was a bigger surprise. The pygmy horned lizard (Phrynosoma douglasii). I would have assumed these were young ones but the adult size can be as little as 1 1/4 inch. This species occurs down the eastern side of the Cascade mountains and even over to the Rockies as far as Yellowstone National park and south to the far northwest corner of Nevada in Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge.