Tag: Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area

Two in the Bush…by Brad Marks

Welcome to 2025 everybody!! Admittedly, I am now officially 0 for 2 in actually getting the date right, but don’t worry, the year is still young…there will be plenty more mistakes ha. The Intrigued holiday break is officially past and those not already assigned to the field are back in the office, stoking the fireplaces, cleaning up after the raucous year end party and based on the last weather report, shoveling the parking lot and salting the walkways. Fortunately, Linda and I are getting ready to enjoy the sun-soaked days of South Padre Island. Birding has been excellent so far including some very successful chases to pad the 2024 Average Year (not updated, link here) and getting the 2025 version off to a great start. Best of all, we have met some extremely kind and helpful birders on our trip down here! A big thank you and shoutout to Tim, Q, Tom, Tonya and Arthur – best of luck on your 2025 birding goals. While I dig out the sunscreen and finish up all the 2024 paperwork (hope I didn’t leave all those staff expense reports in the fireplace, wink), Brad is going to bring you a few finds from Sin City.

Take it away Brad…

As Brian has stated many times over the years, he has quite a backlog of photos to process and write stories about.  I’m nowhere near his backlog levels.  Even if I am, it’s only because of the grueling travel schedule Intrigued HQ has Jan and I on this year.  Looking back through the queue of stories, I found this one that I had started, but had “misplaced” and not taken the time to finish.  This story is from our trip to Las Vegas during September 2023. 

In the afterglow of seeing a Desert Tortoise (see here) in Red Rock Canyon outside of Las Vegas, Jan and I decided to drive to the Willow Springs Picnic area to see the Petroglyph Wall.

We arrived at the park late in the day, after 4:30pm.  Shadows were long in the canyon.  We weren’t hopeful of seeing many desert birds.  The shadows also helped reduce the desert temperature to a comfortable range while standing outside of the air-conditioned rental car.  Early Fall can be quite warm in the desert.  Forget about that “dry heat” nonsense, hot is hot.  While we did see a few musings carved in the stone at the Petroglyph Wall, that wasn’t the really interesting part.

As Jan and I walked further up the trails and into the shadows in the canyon, we were cranking up the ISO as we went.  Our cameras (replaced with the next model since writing this story, they did each have over 200K clicks on them) were most effective up to about ISO 3200, but past that it’s really an iffy proposition to get publishable photos.  As it was, I thought I was stretching the cameras to the max with high ISO, aperture as wide as the lens would allow and a slower shutter speed than I would like to be using.  Nikon’s Vibration Reduction (VR) helped a bit, but not nearly enough to keep the other settings low enough to catch spastic little birds in the scrub brush.

Sure enough, there were two little birds teasing us mercilessly.  These LBJ’s lived there and probably knew our cameras were being taxed.  Both of them were within feet of the ever-darkening trail.  Each would flit to the outside of their respective bush/shrub, pause for about 1/250th of a second, and then bury themselves in the dark interiors again.

Bewick's Wren found at Red Rocks Canyon Conservation Area by Brad Marks

Hit the jump to read more about these very active finds.

Continue reading Two in the Bush…by Brad Marks

Slow and Steady…by Brad Marks

The Halloween season has come to a close which brings with it a mixture of sadness and relief. We hate to see it end, but it also feels like the steam has finally been released from the pressure cooker. Yesterday (the 1st) was “Spirit Day” as we have come to call it. The night before the haunters were nestled all snug in their beds while visions of ghouls and monsters danced in their heads. Away to the local Spirit “popup” Halloween store we flew like a flash for what to our wondering eyes should appear but an entire store at 50% off. A bundle of props we flung on our backs. We were heard to exclaim as we drove out of sight, we can’t wait until the next haunt night! Actually, there is a little pressure still left in the cooker as I have to find places to store all the new stuff – eh, worry about that another day ha. In addition to celebrating another successful haunting season I also managed to reach an annual running goal. In all the Halloween chaos and injury setbacks, I managed to still hit my 1200 mile annual running goal – 60 days early!

I mainly bring this up as a lead in to let you know Brad will be taking the helm to give me a badly needed rest and because his post happens to be about another trail “speed demon”.

Take it away Brad (and Jan)…

Let me set the stage here for you.

It’s late September.  Jan and I are in a National Park in southern Nevada just outside Las Vegas.  We are in the desert with Red Rock all around.  That’s right, it’s Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, about 20 minutes outside of Las Vegas.  The temperature is in the upper 80’s or low 90’s at 4pm.  Yes, we remembered to bring water with us.

We flashed our Annual Park Pass (surely you all have one of these beauties by now) at the entrance gate and started on the 13-mile scenic drive to see what we could see.  One of the first things we saw surprised us a little bit.

Desert Tortoise by Brad Marks

It was a “Tortoise Crossing” sign.  I figured the chances of seeing a Desert Tortoise were just as high as our seeing a Bighorn Sheep in Arches National Park (still haven’t seen one there, despite the myriad of road signs).  Although the Elk Crossing signs near Estes Park, CO are very accurate.

About four miles into the scenic drive, we came upon a white sedan with its doors open and flashers on, taking up the right side of the road.  We crept past and parked to see if they needed any help.  Two young men (college age I’m guessing) were kneeling in front of the car.  I suspected car trouble.

Imagine the surprise when Jan and I got out of our car to find out what they were doing.

Hit the jump to find out what the surprise was!

Continue reading Slow and Steady…by Brad Marks

Cheetle-Jay

Hello everyone! I am back for a likely brief period of time while I’m waiting for some props to finish drying. First off, I wanted to thank you for the warm welcome you gave Brad on his first guest post. Definitely helping me out while I try to get things under control at the home base. There will be more coming from him in the future – in fact he already has some ready to go. Will try to spread out the sugar, don’t want anyone to get over-sweetened and tire of the standard fare ha!

Really good news on the running front as well. Finished my 50K simulation run last week on the approximate course the 100K will be held. Not sure what happened over there, but the CoE site looked like a tornado hit it – downed trees everywhere. Some still over the trails turning it into a wilderness obstacle course. Other areas had been cleaned of the down timber, but so many branches and wood chips were left behind I had hunt/guess to find the path at times. Will be impressed if they get all that scrub taken care prior to the race (in a shockingly short 3 weeks). The simulation did successfully remind me the actual race is not going to be “pleasant” until the moment I cross the finish line – was definitely feeling the last couple of miles of the simulation and that only gets me HALF way there – will thankfully be cooler then.

Enough of that, let’s get to the part you come here to see – the featured feathered friend of the day.

Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay found at Red Rock Canyon, Clark County, NV in February 2020

Hit the jump for more of my Vegas tin.

Continue reading Cheetle-Jay

It Say’s I’m the Best

For the last two weeks I’ve woken up, looked at the day’s to-do list, covered my dog’s ears and let out a string of colorful words. In big bold letters is the word “POST”. Although that probably is obvious but it is short for “Get your lazy butt into the den and get a post out you lily-livered, bow-legged, flea-bitten varmint”. Yes, I’m retired, yes, I still have to-do lists and yes, my to-do list entries mock me. This month it isn’t so much procrastination, just too much stuff going on, but today we are going to take another bite out of the self-imposed monthly post quota.

Going to start with another brag introduction. I previously mentioned Raven did well in the TDAA National competition held last week in Minnesota. He is starting to slow down a bit, but he is getting the job done qualifying in 4 out of his 6 runs. I’d be sleeping on the couch if I didn’t give some of that credit to Linda ha!

Raven at TDAA Nationals in Maple Grove, MN July 2022

I think Raven is starting to feel the pressure from the newest member of the agility family. A long way from the steady runs of his brother, Ruger is just starting out, but showing amazing talent – Linda just needs to get him focused. We laughed at this shot of him “doing” his first ever weave poles. By “doing” we mean running right through them to get to his favorite obstacle the teeter-totter. “That isn’t how it’s done Ruger!” Raven was absolutely embarrassed and went and hid in his crate after that fiasco.

Raven at TDAA Nationals in Maple Grove, MN July 2022

As they Say’s, hit the jump to see today’s featured feathered friend!

Continue reading It Say’s I’m the Best

Happy Valentine’s Day from the Birding World

Hello Everyone, Happy “Spend Lots of Money on Your Significant Other” Day or minimally shower them with affection and let them know how important they are in your life (the latter being a hell of a lot cheaper .. just saying). So a few posts back I mentioned that I had already selected the featured subject for this special day. That foreshadowing resulted in Ron spending every available minute from that point on theorizing, hypothesizing and speculating on what I would possibly select to represent SLoMoYSO Day. He actually had a few good guesses, but failed to put two and two together even though he already knew what birds were in my queue. Granted, his guess of a Vermilion Flycatcher (link here) would have definitely been a fitting tribute to the traditional color of the day, I went with another option – one that is making its debut on the blog.

Anna's Hummingbird found at Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, Las Vegas, NV, November 2018

Yes, a Hummingbird! How cute is that!?! In every post involving these delicate birds I’ve mentioned how I have to travel to get any variety in the tin. If you live in the Midwest you basically have three choices of Hummingbirds. The first being a Ruby-Throated Hummingbird. Secondly, if you stand real still in a yard full of Hummingbird feeders you just might see a Ruby-Throated Hummingbird. Now lastly, if you are feeling really lucky, and I mean really feeling lucky and cover yourself in sugar water and shimmy up the largest pole you can locate you might find yourself in a mental ward …soon after seeing a Ruby-Throated Hummingbird. I think you get the picture.

Anna's Hummingbird found at Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, Las Vegas, NV, November 2018

So instead, we load up the RV and head out to better locations. Las Vegas happened to be the spot where this specimen made it into the tin. Over the last Thanksgiving holiday we headed out to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area to see what we could find being already elated to have checked off the Costa’s Hummingbird the day before (link here). While coming out of the Visitor Center I noticed the unmistakable sound of a Hummingbird blasting by with full burners engaged. Challenge accepted. This proved to be a bit more difficult than usual thanks to choosing to leave the Beast at home and rent a 180-600mm from a local camera store. Although it was definitely lighter than the Beast, the focus was incredibly slow making in flight shots impossible. All was not lost, just needed to wait until these sugar freaks took a break.

Hit the jump to discover why this little bird was chosen for V-Day.

Continue reading Happy Valentine’s Day from the Birding World

Often Heard, Rarely Spotted

In preparation for tomorrow, I did some digging in my out building, found a lawn chair and dragged it out to the middle of the yard. Grabbed a pair of flip flops, a bottle of suntan lotion, cheap sunglasses and my favorite birding reference book. Going to be some fun in the heatwave forecasted to hit sometime tomorrow…40F. However, there are possible clouds and rain sneaking in for the afternoon through tomorrow night. Needless to say, I’ll take it. It might look a bit odd being surrounded by a foot of snow that is still lingering, but I “needz my vitamin D”. In truth, I am skeptical it is going to get that warm with this much snow and ice about, but I will definitely be lacing up the running shoes and getting a few miles in snow, rain or sunshine. It might be a bit sketchy on the footing, but it will help the soul to lift the winter blahs. If nothing else, I can simply recall warmer places… for instance Las Vegas.

First a public service warning to those of you that might have adverse reactions to creatures with red eyes. As with the previous post on the Cinnamon Teal, today’s featured bird also possesses a blood red eye. Feel free to view the rest of the post through your fingers if that will make you feel more comfortable ha!

Spotted Towhee found at Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, Las Vegas, Nevada, November 2018

I was just talking to Ron tonight on how odd it is that so many birds have red hued eyes and I am not talking about the night owls squinting through strained eyes and hazy rooms trying to hit the big payout on the one arm bandits (another term that is becoming outdated with the advent of digital technology/machines). We were wondering if it provided some evolutionary benefit, maybe better able to see at dark or perhaps provide better tracking of UV urine trails of prey (yes, some birds have that ability like the Kestrel) or perhaps it is simply a defensive mechanism – if I was a bird I would stay way the hell away from something that had red eyes – clearly bloodthirsty heathens – just saying. Neither of us have a definitive response to the quandary which means I’ll have something to research while enjoying that lawn chair tomorrow. If you happen to have some thoughts on red eyes feel free to let us know in the comments. We here at Intrigued are thirsty for wildlife knowledge.

Short one tonight, but if you hit the jump, I have a few more words and one more image to share.

Continue reading Often Heard, Rarely Spotted

Rocking Vegas

Getting my exercise in alternative ways today. Seems Old Man Winter has decided the Midwest needed a serious coating of white. Snow has been coming down in our area since 9pm last night and not planned to let up until 2am tomorrow. Good for our wells, but not for the body. Finally got my back functioning again and was hoping to take an easier trajectory to the daily workouts. So far everything is holding together – did a mid-shovel this morning to get the pavements cleared, but will probably be heading out soon to clear off the 4 hours of new powder that has been dropped and break out the tractor to clear the 300′ of driveway.

In the meantime, thought I’d recall warmer times in the Mojave Desert.

Rock Wren located at Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, Las Vegas NV,k November 2018

Feel bad for bringing you another fairly dull colored bird, but the desert birds tend to inherit the hues of their surroundings. Nonetheless, this little bird represents the second +1 for the young year. Those that happen to be familiar with our feathered friends will probably recognize it as part of the Wren family. Although unable to bring this element to bear, the chatter these hyperactive birds emit is also a dead giveaway. All that is left to do is identify which type it is.

Rock Wren located at Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, Las Vegas NV,k November 2018

Hit the jump to find out what this new bird is!

Continue reading Rocking Vegas