Enjoyed visiting Farragut State Park in Idaho. In 2009 when I passed through the area it was full. It’s located along the southwest border of Lake Pend Oreille, 20 miles north of Coeur D’Alene. There is a beautiful mixed conifer forrest with trails all over the place. Many intersect, so you can design your own hike. Most are fairly level, which I appreciated. The park also has a number of campgrounds, so you can choose hookups or no hookups. Now is a good time, at least mid-week, for people like me to visit. Would not want to come when it’s full (of kids…ok, I admit it).

The weather has continued to alternate between the 60′s & 70′s and cold spells with rain and snow in the mountains. There is some flooding in flood plain areas in Idaho.

Birds and squirrels are the main wildlife here. They say “Don’t feed the bears” on their handout map, but they are rarely seen. They don’t have bear proof trash cans. Mountain goats are on the opposite side of the lake. If you go out on a boat, they are supposed to be tame around people.

Above pictures: a pine grosbeak, like I saw in New Mexico. It was near the visitor center where there are trees and bird feeders. The picture below it is a gray jay near my campsite. Only the second time I’ve seen one.

Above, western bluebirds, the female with an insect in it’s beak. Below, a red-breasted nuthatch.

A Columbian ground squirrel. They were all over the campground I was in. They don’t seem to have many predators here. (update) Talked with camp host who said eagles, red-tailed hawks, kestrals, and coyotes do hunt these guys.

Just saw a few deer. Think road kill and hunters probably keep their numbers down.

Below, a trail near my campsite and Lake Pend Oreille.

Stayed at Hyde Memorial State Park in the Sangre de Cristos Mountains, just 8 miles above the historic Santa Fe district. The campground is only open when the snow melts. This year it was gone in April, usually it’s May.

The road to the campground continues on 8 miles to the Santa Fe ski basin. The top picture above is from an overlook there. A sign says aspen trees grew in after a fire in 1880 and fir trees will eventually replace them. If they haven’t been replaced in more than 100 years, guess they will be there for some time.

Sculptures at the Ghost Ranch building in Santa Fe.

Above, a white-breasted nuthatch and a Clark’s nutcracker. The nuthatch appeared to be collecting nesting material.

Also stopped at Manzano Mountains State Park, southeast of Albuquerque. It is a small park that is closed most of the year because of snow.

Above, a picture taken as I was leaving and an Abert’s squirrel in a birdfeeder.

After I left Bandelier National Monument, stopped in Albuquerque for a day. Saw there was a wind advisory and possible thunderstorms forecast for the next day. Subsequently headed to Elephant Butte State Park to wait it out. Not sure if that was the right choice, as I was buffeted by severe winds for 4 days. However, saw that most of the southwest had weather problems during this period.

After leaving the Elephant Butte area, stopped at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in Socorro. The sandhill cranes are gone, but there are still plenty of other birds there.

Enjoyed visiting Bandelier National Monument near Los Alamos, New Mexico. There are an amazing number of holes in the rock cliffs all over the area. The area peaked in the 1400′s. The ancestral Pueblo people then moved close to the Rio Grande River, which is nearby.

Enjoyed staying in the campground at Bandelier. There were only a few people there, although the Visitor Center parking lot was full of visitors every day. The ponderosa pines in the campground made me of think of Idaho and Montana campgrounds. It is closed from November to February because of snow.

Bandelier is composed of 33,750 acres, but has only 3 miles of public roads. There are 70 miles of trails. The ones by the Visitor Center follow a stream and are easy to walk. You can follow one trail along the creek down to where it meets the Rio Grande River.

Two days in a row I walked along a trail along the creek that goes to the last official dwelling exhibit. Beyond this point, the trail takes you into the National Wilderness Preservation System. There were quite a few backpackers hiking into the area.

Both days on my walks along the creek saw a female black bear with two cubs. The first day, a ranger had chased them up a tree. He said the female has been coming to the area for 3 years because of the water and plant food sources. The second day, the ranger didn’t even bother to come. He had said they don’t pose a danger and would rather climb a tree than confront humans.

Above, an Abert‘s or tassel-eared squirrel. Have wanted to see one of these guys for a number of years.

Above, a vewpoint in the town of White Rock, a suburb of Los Alamos a little northeast of Bandelier. It is looking towards Sante Fe and the town of Española. The Rio Grande River runs down the center of the picture, but is hidden behind a hill. Saw both kayakers on the river and backpackers hiking into the area.

The city of Santa Fe is so beautiful. They don’t allow advertising billboards. You just see the official highway system signs along the highway. There must also be an ordinance on what colors can be used to paint homes and businesses. They are all an adobe color with just differences in the amount of yellow, red, and white paint added. So they don’t all look alike, yet blend really well together.

Below, Valles Caldera National Preserve that is just west of Bandlier. It was a private ranch until the year 2000. The owner’s sold the entire surface estate of 95,000 acres and seven-eighths of the geothermal mineral estate to the federal government.

Stayed in the Tucson area for a couple of weeks. Nice to see that grass front yards are 98% gone. Many people have used creative ways to continue the desert landscape around homes and business’. Saw a lot of dead palm trees and eucalyptus trees in the area.

Above is the eastern unit of the Saguaro National Park looking towards the Catalina Mountains.

Drove the Catalina Highway to the top of Mt. Lemmon. It rises 4,000 feet in around 25 miles—it’s all uphill. Lots of bicyclists were making the grueling ride to the top. It would be a beautiful place to see a sunset or escape the summer heat at 7,000 feet elevation.

Curved billed thrashers seen in an urban area.

Birds, and critter, seen at Catalina State Park in the campground: a canyon towhee with a malformed bill, a gila woodpecker, a Cooper’s hawk, and a ground squirrel. The Cooper’s hawk flew to the ground, perhaps to catch one of the many ground squirrels. Later saw it hiding in a bush stalking birds and squirrels.

Anyone who has traveled in Montana has seen all the damage beetles have done to their forests. Nowhere is this more evident than around the state’s capital, Helena. It looks like almost all the trees you see from the city are dead. The picture above is from a campground in the Helena National Forest. The red trees are dying and the gray trees on the right side of the picture are just skeletons. It looks like the policy is to let them die and blend in somewhat with the green trees.

I know in the Helena Forest, and in other parts of the state, patches are put on some of the trees to repel beetles. Some National Forests and BLM areas are using controlled burns on the worst sections. I’ve wondered why Helena doesn’t do this to all the dead trees that can be seen from the city. In Glacier National Park they say they are just spraying the more valuable trees that take centuries to grow.

Stayed at an RV park in Three Forks, Montana to wait out a 2 day storm. Wanted to have hookups and internet access if I was stuck inside.

I’m seeing a lot of this plant in the National Forests in Montana. It looks like spotted knapweed, an invasive weed that the Forest Service and BLM want to get rid of.

I stayed a few days in a National Forest campground on the edge of the Lolo Forest. It was a dry area near Missoula with mainly ponderosa pine and little understory.

Next stop was Aspen Grove Campground in the Helena National Forest.  On the third day at the campground I saw a least chipmunk jump onto one of my front truck tires. Bells went off as I realized it might be trying to nest in the motor area. Sure enough, on lifting the hood, the chipmunk’s head popped up several times. I propped the truck hood up about a foot, as I’ve seen other campers do to keep critters out of their engines.

On subsequently talking with a camp host in a Utah campground, found he uses the two-day rule. He moves his car every two days to prevent squirrels from nesting in the engine. In my case, my truck had been sitting for 3 days, leading me to believe there might be something to the two day rule.

Below, a hairy woodpecker.

Have been in Lolo National Forest for most of the past few weeks. Highway 12 goes up to Lolo Pass, where you enter Idaho and the Clearwater National Forest. In Idaho it’s called the Northwest Passage Scenic Byway. This is the route Lewis and Clark, and Indians long before them, used.

Above, two gray jays. The first ones I’ve ever seen. They are very elusive and were in my campsite area only a few minutes.

Highway 12 follows along a number or streams and rivers. I saw lots of  stellar jays while driving, but only a few in my campground.

A kestral in farmland in the town of Lolo.

A blue-grouse (I think) seen along a forest service road.

A red-breasted nuthatch (top) and a red crossbill (lower).

A red squirrel that buries nuts that bears often dig up. It, like many of the birds, is not interested in handouts from humans. They generally run and jump quickly away from you.

There were a huge number of these moths (?) flying around one campground for a few days.

Above, an adult and fledgling yellow-rumped warblers. They were seen near Big Sky in the Gallatin National Forest.

Made one quick trip to Spokane, Washington, to get my trailer serviced. Was surprised to see a pair of marmots in the industrial area.

Visited the Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area near Boise, Idaho. In the picture above it was sunny where I was, but there was snow and rain in half the sky, towards the mountains.

A Say’s phoebe (top) and a Brewer’s sparrow (bottom) near Dedication Point.

On the plateau above the Snake River there are “extraordinary numbers” of Townsend’s ground squirrels because of the unique soil and abundant food. Above you see a homeowner’s nightmare: all the light colored areas are squirrel burrows. There are miles and miles and miles of them. These are the small squirrels that run into the road in front of your car and then stop and maybe turn around.

The largest concentration of nesting prairie falcons in North America occurs in the NCA and feeds mainly on ground squirrels. When summer’s heat drives the ground squirrels into their burrows for summer hibernation, most prairie falcons leave the NCA in search of other prey. (Text from a sign at Dedication Point.)

I heard gunfire while I was at Dedication Point. On looking at the NCA’s web site found that target practice using squirrels is ok in certain areas. Urban sprawl from the Boise suburbs is inching very close to the NCA. Wonder if that will change the policy of allowing gun use.

Western kingbird seen along farmland on the way to the NCA.

Young male and female California quails near where I stayed along the Snake River. There are a lot of them in the area.

Below, a Western tanager. Not a great picture, but I see so few of them, wanted to post it.

Birds seen but not pictured: juvenile northern harriers, red-tailed hawks, swallows, kestrals, tundra swans, an osprey with a fish in it’s talons.

Visited the Tri-Cities area of south-central Washington (Richland, Kennewick, and Pasco) in order to visit some wildlife refuges in the area. Stayed a few days at an Army Corps of Engineers campground along the Snake River. Part of the McNary Wildlife Refuge is right next to the campground. Saw the Kingfisher above in a marsh area there.

It is the season to start seeing osprey nests.

Below, a coyote in the refuge.

Next drove through Hanford Reach National Monument. The Hanford Site is where Plutonium reactors were built in 1943 to make the atom bomb dropped on Japan in 1945. The reactors are now inactive and being dismantled. The Site is on the Columbia River and a wide area of land around it that served as a security buffer is now the Saddle Mountain National Wildlife Refuge.

There was a severe wind alert throughout Washington and parts of Oregon and Idaho. I drove on to Toppenish to stay till they passed. The winds really shook my trailer and blew open the heavy cover on the bed of my truck. Luckily, the farmland I was parked next to had a crop growing on it, so I didn’t get a lot of topsoil blown my way.

Above, a California quail at the Toppenish Wildlife Refuge.

Below, northeast Oregon farmland along I-84. It snowed a little past where this picture was taken. Enjoyed the drive along the I-84, with all it’s rest stops.

The Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area in Southwest Idaho is managed by the BLM. It is supposed to have “one of the world’s densest concentrations of nesting birds of prey”. The World Center of Birds of Prey is located nearby in Boise.

Above, the Snake River near Swan Falls Dam in the conservation area. There is a dirt/gravel road (shown in the picture) that goes 4 miles along the river with pullouts for camping. The dirt/gravel road is pretty good, but the pullouts in the sandy dirt have been damaged by rain. I didn’t see any rv’s, just tents. Also, the road down to the river has one mile of, at the minimum, an 8% grade.

A hawk (not sure which one) with chicks on a telephone pole in the prairie above the river valley. I could see and hear hawks in the cliffs on the right side of the river, but they were so far away and blended in so well with the cliffs, I couldn’t get any pictures.

There are the largest squirrels along the river. When I first saw one, thought it was a beaver. They are really large and lumbering in their movements.

Fellow travel blogger, Lloyd, with a wonderful site at wandrin.us, is probably right that the above rodent is a yellow-bellied marmot.

In the parking lot at the Birds of Prey Center saw the above bird. Came to find out it’s a chukar. When I was at the Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge, their refuge map said chukar hunting was allowed at the base of the mountain. Chukar’s are not native to the U.S., they were brought in as a game bird for hunting. Don’t see how anyone could shoot one, they are so cute.

Below, a bald eagle on display at the Birds of Prey Center.