An amazing day for wildlife today!
Not a great variety of birds today, but I did spot a juvenile great horned owl at the side of the path. It was snoozing on a branch and even treated us to a few head bobs while we watched it. We shared our spot with a few other hikers as well.
We did see an astonishing number of different plants and I enjoyed using seek to identify them. The app has clearly had an upgrade since the last time I used it as it was really fast, even with no internet. Keith took some great photos of the prettiest ones.
I also saw quite a few fungi in the forest areas, but only managed to ID one from the photo Keith took.
We also saw a huge number of small mammals, including chipmunks and ground squirrels and witnessed idiot tourists feeding them. Because of this they are very brave and run up to your lap if you sit down to eat. Very cute and fun to watch and take photos of, but essentially a problem to manage the population if hikers don’t respect they are wild.
I saw a mouse/vole sized rodent on the path but wasn’t quick enough to get a photo or ID. Research hasn’t really helped so it will have to stay a mystery.
The surprise of the day was that we didn’t see a single raptor hanging in a clear sky and with the number of pine siskins and chipmunks/squirrels I would have expected a few. We did speak to some Dutch Merlin users who said they had seen something big, but didn’t get a chance to ID it.
The disappointment of the day was that three young American hikers in the queue at the tea house had just seen and photographed a porcupine, but we didn’t manage to get a glimpse!