While driving to town last week, it became clear that fall has arrived near our little corner of Utah. The colors were just exploding, and the quaking aspen in particular were at their autumn peak. I love it when the leaves are so conspicuous that it appears they are a vivid orange halo, afloat near the trees rather than attached to the branches.
On Sunday, Tim and I took a drive and saw wild turkeys by the roadside, a small herd of deer beyond a fence, large birds of prey sitting on telephone poles, and small birds flitting among the trees near a creek. Magpies were shek-shek-sheking as they flew between the juniper trees, dipping and showing off their whirligig feathers. I've always enjoyed magpies and jays and crows and especially ravens. In Yellowstone, guests were sometimes afraid of the boldness of these birds, and many of my co-workers were fond of calling magpies "trash in a tuxedo." Having witnessed their obvious intelligence and problem-solving skills first-hand for so many years, I wonder why everyone isn't fascinated by corvids. Or by birds in general, for that matter.
We took some time exploring a small campground by the name of Clover Spring. It seemed there were a thousand hues of yellow, green, brown, red, and orange all around us. From the moss-covered stones in the creek to the fallen leaves on the ground, it was all so lovely. It may have helped that we had the entire place to ourselves.
We also stopped at Clover Reservoir, a small wetlands area / refuge where we saw a zig zagging jackrabbit and a dried up marsh that will hopefully offer some waterfowl sightings come spring.
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| a line of transmission towers along the highway adjacent to Clover Reservoir |
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| another heart shaped rock, albeit a man-made and painted one |
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