We are so high tech out here on the range. Can’t get good enough cell service to talk long, but I can receive texts. Pete found an owl nest underneath a wooden bridge across an irrigation ditch, and sent me a text message. I arrived at the bridge only to flush the female Great Horned owl, but I got a good look at her and her two owlets hunkered down in the nest.
From there, I drove through the Farson farm country and was amazed at the number of nesting Swainson’s hawks present this year. Farson is a small community at the junction of two highways, and the irrigated farmland surrounding the town is decked with huge hybrid poplars planted as windbreaks in this vast sagebrush sea. The hawks have moved in, with lots of nests and screaming raptors hovering above houses and sheds.
As our lambing season draws to an end, pronghorn antelope fawning is in full swing. These little buggers are dotting the landscape.
A killdeer tried to draw me away as I crossed Water Hole Draw on my way back to camp.
Jim and I stopped in to visit Prem, a herder from Nepal who is breaking colts and taking care of the sheep herd closest to mine.
UPDATE: Thanks to brilliant photographer John Carlson who straightened me out that my photo was not a long-eared owl as I thought, but was a Great Horned Owl. Thanks John!
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