A Series of Boreal Owl Encounters

Boreal Owl in the Uinta Mountains in Wasatch County, Utah
October 3, 2020

Let the Utah Boreal Owl Hunt Begin

Hello, friends and nature lovers! A little over two years ago I presented myself with a "lifer" choice that would either have me driving two-plus hours to the Uinta Mountains in northeastern Utah or three-plus hours to parts of the Colorado Plateau near Moab, Utah.  "Lifer" is how birders and herpers (reptile and amphibian seekers) refer to a species observed for the first time. In the Uintas I would look for my first-ever Utah Boreal Owl, a rare species for our state. In the Moab area I would go looking for Eastern Collared Lizards. It was mid-summer so it was kind of a choice between the cooler temps of our mountains or the warmer temps of the desert. Reptiles had captured my attention at that time so I chose the desert. I went and had a wonderful time sleeping under the stars and finding and photographing the lizard the following day. I've shared that experience in a previous post found at this link.

Two weeks ago my wife and I did a trip to Yellowstone National Park. Prior to that trip the two-year-old Boreal Owl itch returned so I decided to scratch it by adding an hour or two of owling to the trip.  I would have loved spending more time owling during our evenings, but it was a trip for "us" so my birding interests were barely on the radar for by non-birding spouse. Limited time required me to be efficient so I studied Google Maps before the trip and paid close attention to habitat and location as we drove into the area.

After some downtime at the hotel on our last night of the trip I received the "okay" to venture into the dark for owls. I drove to a dense pine forest with sporadic meadows outside of West Yellowstone. As an FYI, I drove to that location because I had planned to play calls to locate a bird and national parks prohibit the use of recorded calls to attracts birds. The Proper Use of Playback in Birding by David Sibley provides guidelines for using calls to attract birds.

It was quiet that evening on the road I chose, not a single vehicle drove in my direction. I played a Boreal Owl song for about twenty seconds and then listened and waited for a few minutes. With no evidence of an owl being present I tried the process a couple more times. I did this at several stops without getting any indication of an owl's presence. I used my light to scan the trees around me with no success. I drove to what would be my final stop and was again met with utter silence. I gave the surrounding trees one last look before getting back into the car and that's when this little creature appeared in my view. It was perched in a tree about forty feet away.

Boreal Owl near West Yellowstone, Montana
September 29, 2020

That little owl, standing about 9-10" tall, depending on whether it was male or female (males being smaller), had come to see who was calling without ever making a sound. It was one of the "silent observers" as I call them. 

It was an amazing experience, for which I was incredibly grateful. I gave a verbal thank-you to the owl before departing. It was my second Boreal Owl ever and the first one that I was able to find on my own.

Boreal Owl Near West Yellowstone, Montana
September 29, 2020

Time to Find a Utah Boreal Owl

The success of my first Boreal hunt propelled me to develop a plan for finding my first Boreal Owl in Utah.  Prior to leaving for Yellowstone I talked with a friend who had encountered a Boreal Owl in a remote location of the Uinta Mountains at the end of August. I wanted to get a description of habitat without knowing the specific location. I don't ask other birders or photographers for specific locations of the rare species they discover for two reasons. First and foremost, it avoids putting them in an awkward position when they are uncomfortable with having to say no. Secondly, I actually enjoy the process of learning and discovering things on my own as much as possible. I find great satisfaction and joy in the process of learning, exploring, and discovering for myself what nature has to offer. Capturing images as a result of that process often provides nice memorials for those experiences so I do try to get quality images when possible.

Preparation

To prepare for my Utah search I reviewed the handful of eBird reports of Boreal Owl sightings in the Uinta Mountains, spoke with a biologist who has some experience with the species and studied range maps, habitat, and recordings of their vocalizations online. Some range maps showed a thin slice of the range passing through the Uinta Mountains and others showed the Boreal Owl range skirting around Utah from the Rocky Mountains in Colorado up to Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. The Uinta Mountains are considered to be on the fringe of the normal range so it began to feel like I might be searching for a needle in a haystack, but that just made the adventure all the more enticing. For additional intelligence I spoke with a couple of local birders who had recently returned from unsuccessful searches in the Uinta Mountains. They generously provided information regarding the terrain that I would need to traverse in the search I was planning. High clearance, durable all-terrain tires, solid suspension, and 4WD would be required. I heard in my mind, "Don't try this at home, kids!" Neither a sedan nor even a small SUV with highway tires would be well suited for such an endeavor.  The location would not be a good place for a breakdown, nor to simply get stuck in a rut, because much of the area is outside of phone service. With all that information I was ready to begin my search and try to answer my question about how common or rare the species really is in the Uinta Mountains.

Success in the Uinta Mountains!

I set out on my first Utah Boreal Owl hunt October 3rd, 2020. I made it to my starting point during daylight to explore some of the more remote and risky routes in the area. That was a good thing because I lost Verizon service on my phone and was unable to continue viewing the targeted spots I had marked on a personal Google Map. It didn't take long to realize that the roads were rougher than all previous routes I'd taken for owls in other remote mountain locations. I saw lots of great spots to check, however, as I drove deeper into the area. I decided to turn around at one point because I felt like I was in a small boat being tossed to and fro on a roaring sea as I was bounced and tilted side to side from boulder to rut while advancing at a snail's pace. I had already passed through good habitat and it seemed unnecessary to risk the additional wear and tear on my Tacoma.

I stopped as the sun was setting to enjoy the scenery.  It was deathly silent until a Northern Pygmy Owl called from a distant perch and some Mountain Chickadees came in to check me out as I mimicked the call of the Pygmy-owl.

Darkness increased and signaled the time to begin the real hunt for my first Utah Boreal Owl.  I don't know if I got super lucky or if there are more Boreal Owls than we think, but I was able to find my first one after two stops and within seconds of attempting to call for one.  My heart pumped with excitement as I quickly fired off a few fames to document the encounter. I could not believe that the moment had arrived so early in my search because I had prepared myself to return home without seeing one. To my delight, the bird was accommodating and allowed me to capture better images and a brief recording of one of its vocalizations.

Boreal Owl in the Uinta Mountains in Wasatch County, Utah
October 3, 2020

Boreal Owl in the Uinta Mountains in Wasatch County, Utah
October 3, 2020

Once again, I expressed gratitude to the owl before parting. I could have called it a night early and headed home with a great feeling of achievement, but I was then more curious than ever to see how easy or challenging it would be to find another owl. Little did I know that I would choose to stop in a subsequent location that produced two Boreal Owls. They appeared to be a pair, a smaller one presumed to be the male and a larger one appearing to be the female.

Boreal Owl in the Uinta Mountains in Wasatch County, Utah
October 3, 2020

Boreal Owl in the Uinta Mountains in Wasatch County, Utah
October 3, 2020

These two birds vocalized what struck me as contact calls intended to communicate each other's location. The male issued a soft but high-pitched squeak or hiss and the female responded with a slightly louder "wert" call.  Here is a link to the recording of the  Boreal Owl Pair Calling.  The audio file is stored on my Google Drive so if you have the Google Drive app it will probably play well for you. It may help to turn up your volume when you listen to the recording. And, depending on your device, you be required to download the file to hear the soft calls. 

As I was photographing one of the owls it leaned forward and rotated its head side to side a couple of times before expelling a pellet, which it then grasped and held in a talon.

Boreal Owl Casting a Pellet
Uinta Mountains in Wasatch County, Utah
October 3, 2020

Boreal Owl With a Pellet in the Uinta Mountains in Wasatch County, Utah
October 3, 2020

The owl eventually let the pellet fall to the ground and then I retrieved it before leaving the scene because I wanted to take it home, dry it out, and inspect its contents. I saw it as a way to learn a little bit more about the owl I had observed. I'll publish the results of that inspection in a future post.

Needless to say, I was beyond elated with the surprising results of my first Utah Boreal Owl hunt. It was a Boreal Owl bonanza beyond any expectation. I am incredibly grateful for seeing three owls, recording a calling pair, and watching one of them cast a pellet, which became a parting gift of sorts. 

Thank you for visiting my blog and sticking with me through this long post. I hope you enjoyed it and learned something new. May you have safe and excellent encounters as you venture into nature.

Additional resources to learn more about Boreal Owls:

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Boreal_Owl

https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/boreal-owl

Bobbing for Apples and "Pishing" for Birds

Bobbing for apples was a pretty common party game when I was a kid. The game, simply put, went something like this. Someone would place a variety of apples into a large pan or bucket of water. Those playing the game would have the hygienic opportunity of trying to retrieve one of the elusively floating apples using only their mouths. Each player would get a turn until everyone had an apple or gave up on trying. Unless the apples were small, it required quite a few head dips and apples bobs to actually get one of the "used" apples. It seemed like good clean fun as a kid, but that game doesn't pass today's standards for preventing the spread of germs.

Yesterday I was walking around a friend's property in Utah County with one of my twin sons. We were looking for some macro birds (aka the big birds of prey) because my son is not a birder and the micro or "tweety" birds don't really keep his attention. We found two large, likely female, Cooper's Hawks and a Sharp-shinned Hawk. All three had crops that were bulging--a sign that there were a few less micro birds living in the area.

Just as we were leaving my friend's place I decided to play "pishing for birds", a super evolved form of the old bobbing for apples game. Pishing is better observed than explained, but it involves making a "pish, pish, pish" sound with your mouth. It tends to capture the attention of small birds hiding in thick brushy areas. You never know what you'll get when you "pish" for small birds. Well, within seconds of starting my pishing yesterday I won the prize. A rare little gem popped right up from its hiding place to a vantage point that allowed the two of us to make eye contact. It was a White-throated Sparrow, a sparrow considered rare for the state of Utah. As is usually the case when one of these is found in Utah it was floating in a pan of water, I mean hiding in a brushy area with a group of lookalike friends, the White-crowned Sparrows. The white and brown stripes on the head of White-throated are similar to our ubiquitous White-crowned Sparrows, but the yellow lores and white throat patch separate the rare sparrow from the more common sparrow. The bill of a White-throated is also kind of a dark gray rather than the almost orange color for the bill of a White-crowned.

White-throated Sparrow Utah County, Utah, USA

White-throated Sparrow Utah County, Utah, USA

White-throated Sparrow Utah County, Utah, USA

I am always amazed at the odds of being in the right place at the right time when finding a rare bird because the earth is a pretty big place.  Yesterday, I was in the right place at the right time for a Utah County, and Utah for that matter, birder.

Below are three images to compare the appearance of the White-throated with both a juvenile and adult image of  the more common (in Utah anyway) White-crowned Sparrow.

Adult White-throated Sparrow (Utah County, Utah, USA)

Juvenile White-crowned Sparrow

Adult White-crowned Sparrow

A Close Encounter of the Great Gray Kind

Great Gray Owl just before the rays of the sun hit the valley in which it was hunting in Morgan County, Utah

Northern Utah Birders have been graced by the visit of two vagrant Great Gray Owls in recent weeks. Apparently harsh winter conditions in Wyoming and other northern states have driven these owls to more southern locations. The last documented sighting of a Great Gray Owl in Utah was way back in 1989 so naturally the recent reports had Utah birders scrambling from all over the state to the Great Gray epicenters in Wasatch and Morgan Counties. The Wasatch County owl went missing almost as quickly as it was reported, but not before some documentary photos were captured by local residents. Most birders missed seeing that owl. My friend Eric Peterson and I came up empty when we searched for it. We consoled ourselves while searching for that owl by reliving the experiences we had last year when we went to see our first-ever Great Gray Owls in Tetonia, Idaho--a five hour drive to the north from our home towns. Click this link to read about our encounter with Great Grays in the shadows of the Grand Tetons.

Last week reports of a Great Gray Owl in Morgan County were shared with the local birding community. A large number of Utah birders were able to see that owl because it was a gentle giant that seemed to ignore all the onlookers. I was able to see that owl last week through a scope and binoculars as it perched on a hillside about 120 yards away.  I enjoyed a nice visit with one of my sons as we drove just over an hour north to see that gorgeous bird.

Well, my friend Eric wanted to search for the bird so we decided to head up yesterday morning before I had to got to work for meetings. The bird had been searched for and missed for two days prior to our trip so we had our fingers crossed that the attention being showered on it hadn't pushed it to more remote hunting grounds. We suspected the owl would be most active in the early morning hours if it was still in the area since that was our experience with the Idaho owls we had observed the year before. We arrived in the area just before sunrise and cruised around the area in a methodical manner. We were coming up empty and began to wonder if the bird had moved on. To our delight, Eric spotted the owl on a fence when he looked for cross traffic as he approached a stop sign. We were like little kids in a candy store grinning ear to ear when we realized we were having a close encounter with such a gorgeous bird. We used our vehicle as a blind as we observed and photographed one of North America's tallest owl species (nearly 27" tall, 5" taller than Great Horned Owls).

Great Gray Owl Morgan County, Utah

We pulled off the road to the right shoulder, opposite the side of the road the bird was on, so we would not block traffic. It became apparent rather quickly that the owl had very little interest in or concern for us as we sat in our vehicle. We watched as the owl focused its attention toward the snow-covered ground. It would move its head from side to side and occasionally stare in one direction, likely listening intently for the sound of a rodent moving beneath the snow.

Great Gray Owl Morgan County, Utah

The owl moved from one post to another to look and listen for snow-tunneling prey. At one point the owl went down to the ground. We were pulling for it to secure some prey, but...

Great Gray Owl Morgan County, Utah

After a minute or so the owl rose up from the snow and returned to its perch without having prey in its talons.

Great Gray Owl Morgan County, Utah

Great Gray Owl Returning to it Hunting Perch in Morgan County, Utah

Several local residents drove their vehicles between us and the owl while we continued to watch from the other side of the street. One passerby stopped, rolled down a window, and took photos or video of the owl with a phone.  The owl essentially ignored them.

Below are a few other images captured during our moment in time with the extremely rare Utah visitor.

Great Gray Owl Morgan County, Utah

Great Gray Owl Morgan County, Utah

Great Gray Owl Morgan County, Utah

True to observations Eric and I made last winter with Great Gray Owls in Idaho this owl flew up to what would turn out to be its daytime roost about an hour after the sun rose on the valley.

Great Gray Owl Roosting in Morgan County, Utah

It may sound strange to some, but I always say thank you aloud or to myself after memorable encounters with fascinating creatures like the Great Gray Owl.

I'll finish off by sharing a short video clip of the owl. I wasn't planning to shoot video so I did not have my tripod to steady the lens while zoomed to about 700mm (500mm with a crop sensor). The video is a little shaky and under exposed so I have a little practicing I need to do for low-light video capturing.

(View in HD for best quality)

Until next time...

Lesser Black-backed Gull: A First for Provo Christmas Bird Count

My First Lesser Black-backed Gull Located Nearly Three Years Ago in Pleasant Grove, UT

I continued a yearly tradition on December 20th when I participated in the 115th annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count (CBC). The Audubon CBC is the longest running Citizen Science survey in the world. This year over 2300 count circles, each with a 15-mile diameter, were organized around the world to conduct bird counts between December 14th and January 5th. That's right people around the world organize themselves to identify and count as many individual birds as they can hear and/or see on a specified day between December 14th and January 5th. The information obtained from these counts provides important data on bird population trends. Learn more about the Audubon Christmas Bird Count by clicking here.

I participated in the Provo, Utah count circle and had the pleasure of introducing two new birders to counting birds. Fifteen-year-old Easton Parkhurst and his dad Ben joined me to count every bird seen or heard in the area that was assigned to us. The area we counted was the same one I counted during my very first CBC about four years ago and runs along an eastern portion of Utah Lake from northwest Orem, through Vineyard, and western parts of Lindon, Utah. It was a real treat to have new birders join me for the count because I relived the excitement of a new birder with each new species observed by Easton and his dad. I also enjoyed helping Easton get photos of some of the birds we discovered. Maybe he'll include some in a future post to his blog, eastonswildlife.

We started about an hour before sunrise with hopes of finding a Screech-Owl and a pair of Great Horned Owls I'd discovered in our count area prior to the CBC. We missed out on the Screech-Owl, but we were able to hear and then locate one Great Horned Owl hooting in the early morning darkness. We also confirmed the presence of two Barn Owls that are on private property. The property owners granted us permission to check for those owls. Secretive Virginia Rails were fun to hear and see. And as I suspected, Easton soon grew tired of counting Starlings and Robins. They numbered in the thousands. Fortunately, we were able to locate some more exciting birds such as Spotted Towhees, Red-tailed Hawks, Cooper's and Sharp-shinned Hawks, and Downy Woodpeckers. We even heard a lone Sora doing its "whinnying" call from a well-hidden location among the phragmite overgrowing the settling ponds south of Lindon Boat Harbor. Soras don't generally winter in northern Utah, but perhaps the warmer-than-usual weather we've had kept it around. The lake is typically frozen during the CBC, but there was not even a thin layer of ice to be found this year.

The biggest surprise and highlight of the day for me was discovering a Lesser Black-backed Gull along Lindon Beach. It was an historic discovery since it was the first-ever Black-backed Gull observed for the Provo CBC. I discovered the gull using a basic technique for sorting species among mixed flocks of gulls. I was comparing the gray shades of their mantles, looking for any that were obviously lighter or darker than the expected Ring-billed and California Gulls. The image below illustrates the differences in color between Utah's more common Ring-billed and California Gulls. The Ring-billed has a more lightly colored mantle. When seen side by side the California is larger and more darkly mantled than Ring-billed. With those two as a frame of reference I was able to notice a gull nearly the same size as the California but more darkly mantled. It is the third gull in from the left. The dark primary feathers of this gull showed almost no white compared to the white marks seen in the dark primary tips of the California Gulls--another indication of Lesser Black-backed Gull.

I suspected we had a Lesser Black-backed Gull based on previous experience with them, but I needed to see the color of the iris to be certain. My scope was out of commission and the binoculars only revealed the detail you see in the image above. I resorted to another technique for identifying distant birds. By carefully approaching the gulls while using phragmite stands as a blind, I was able to capture an image that could be zoomed and later cropped.  The image below was still taken from quite a distance, cropped significantly, and slightly lightened to uncover the light iris of a Lesser Black-backed Gull. Bingo!

By cropping the image even more the light iris becomes more evident. Nearly three years ago when I found my very first Lesser Black-backed Gull it was a species on the Utah state review list. Because it was considered a rare bird for Utah I had to submit photos, including the one at the beginning of this post, and field notes in order for the Utah State Bird Records Committee to validate the observation. The Lesser Black-backed Gull was removed from the state review list shortly after I found my first one, but it still is a very uncommon gull for our state and especially for Utah County. This gull, for me, was an early Christmas gift!

Easton's dad used a phone camera to capture an image of Easton and me at the end of our count. It was a good and memorable day for me. I hope it was the same for Easton and Ben.

Common Black-Hawk in Utah's Davis County

A northern Utah photographer and birder, Dennis Coleman, was out on a walk this past Wednesday at Farmington Bay WMA in Davis County, Utah. He noticed a hawk and captured some images. Click here to see his images. Dennis was unsure of the identity of the hawk so he shared the images on UBIRD, one of Utah's birding listservs. It turned out that he had found and photographed a juvenile Common Black-Hawk.

We have a few nesting pairs of Black-Hawks in extreme southwest Utah during the spring and summer breeding season, but that is several hundred miles south of Farmington Bay WMA. Breeding season has passed and the Black-Hawks should be on their way to or already hunting in Mexico. That is a very long way from northern Utah. We had a hawk that had gone way astray and I'm a nut for raptors. I went to bed questioning whether I should try to relocate the hawk in the morning.

I usually commute to work from Utah County to Salt Lake City, but I decided to drive myself Thursday so I could attempt to relocate the Black-Hawk. I didn't have much time and soon realized the odds were against me as I tried to figure out how to get to the location where Dennis had seen the hawk. I had taken a frontage road running along the west side of Legacy Highway thinking it would take me far enough north to get to where Dennis reported the hawk. Unfortunately, the road forward ended and I was quite shy of the desired location. I didn't want to have to double back, get on the highway and head farther north again. I was giving up and heading to work when I was fortunate enough to relocate the hawk several miles south of where Dennis had seen it. I had made what I thought was a dumb mistake, but it was by dumb luck, as often happens, that I relocated the hawk. I quickly sent out a rare bird alert to the local birding listservs so others would have a chance to see the hawk. I also texted and left a message for Jerry Liguori, Jerry is the author of multiple books and countless publications about raptor identification. In fact, if you've read this far, you should visit his website by clicking here. He also contributes regularly to the blog for Hawkwatch International. We are fortunate to have him living in the Salt Lake area.

I waited for a few other birders to arrive on the scene so I could hand off the bird's location. I wanted to make it easy for others to locate and observe it. Jerry Liguori was on the scene and observing the bird when I left for work. Shortly after I left the hawk flew east across Legacy Highway and then in a southward direction. It disappeared from the view of a group of birders and it hasn't been seen again since. I have a feeling we may hear about it again.

If it wasn't the cloud cover it was the distance that worked against getting crisp images with my 400mm lens. However, I captured images that provide adequate documentation. The striking facial pattern, bulky secondary feathers, dark malar marks, streaked belly, long legs, finely barred underwings, and white tail with wavy banding are visible in the images below. There were no bands on the bird's legs. It is not one of the banded juvenile hybrids resulting from the breeding of a Red-shouldered Hawk with a Common Black-Hawk in Sonoma County, California.

Way-out-of-range Juvenile Common Black-Hawk in Woods Cross, UT

Way-out-of-range Juvenile Common Black-Hawk in Woods Cross, UT

The lines in the images below are actually guy wires from towering antennas in the open fields behind where the bird was hanging hanging out and making short flights.

Way-out-of-range Juvenile Common Black-Hawk in Woods Cross, UT

Way-out-of-range Juvenile Common Black-Hawk in Woods Cross, UT

Way-out-of-range Juvenile Common Black-Hawk in Woods Cross, UT

Way-out-of-range Juvenile Common Black-Hawk in Woods Cross, UT

Tern Me On: Discovering A Least Tern in Utah

When I was a little scout in Kentucky we talked about and tried to live by the motto "do a good turn daily". When you are a birder in Utah and you are talking about a Least Tern, you may be lucky to do one or two in a lifetime.

I was working away in my Salt Lake City office Monday when reports of rare birds started popping into my inbox. Spring migration was kicking into high gear. I wanted so much to chase some of those rare birds, but I stuck to the task at hand and finished my day's work. On the way home I decided to drop by a very small pond to see if the Hooded Merganser I spotted there Saturday might still be present. I found a Snowy Egret and a Common Merganser along with a Western Kingbird that had just arrived from its more southern origins. Just as I was about to walk away from the pond I saw a REALLY small tern, not much larger than the nearby Barn Swallows, hovering over the pond. I looked through the binoculars and saw a yellow bill with a white forehead. "That is way too small for a more-likely Forster's Tern! I think that is a Least Tern!" That thought came into my mind because I had seen a few Least Terns on one occasion two summers ago in Mexico.

Wanting to document the sighting, I ran across a busy four-lane boulevard to retrieve my camera from the car on the other side of the road.  A storm was rolling in and light conditions were horrible for photography, especially for trying to capture a swiftly moving, small dot of a tern against a large gray sky. I managed to release the shutter several times before the bird flew northward and out of sight. I wondered if it might be going to another pond about a mile north. I got back into my car and checked the field marks against my Sibley app. White forehead, yellow bill, two dark primary feathers, short forked tail, etc. Every mark confirmed my initial impression. I immediately emailed the sighting and location to the rare bird listservs for Utah to get all hands on deck. There are lots of great birding eyes in Utah. Needless to say, that message created quite the stir. Especially when I shared the following photo later that night with the same listservs.

Least Tern Discovered May 6, 2013 by Jeff Cooper in Lehi, UT

The typical range for Least Terns this time of year is more along the eastern, south, and southwest coasts, as well as the mid-western states along the Mississippi River. It seems that this little bird is at "least" 700 miles from the nearest expected locations.

Today, Tuesday, I was busy at work again when local birders were scouring nearby bodies of water in search of the tern. Fortunately for who-knows-how-many birders, the tern was discovered a mile north on a pond which locals have named Powell Lake. Being from Kentucky, it looks more like a pond than a lake. Anyway, the bird was giving great looks to everyone who went to see it. I dropped by the pond, sorry, lake tonight after work and found the lighting unfavorable again, but it was better than last night. Here are some of the photos captured tonight.

Least Tern Hunting Over Powell Lake in Lehi, UT (Photo by Jeff Cooper)

Least Tern Hunting Over Powell Lake in Lehi, UT (Photo by Jeff Cooper)

Least Tern Hunting Over Powell Lake in Lehi, UT (Photo by Jeff Cooper)

Least Tern Hunting Over Powell Lake in Lehi, UT (Photo by Jeff Cooper)

Least Tern Hunting Over Powell Lake in Lehi, UT (Photo by Jeff Cooper)

Least Tern Hunting Over Powell Lake in Lehi, UT (Photo by Jeff Cooper)

Least Tern Hunting Over Powell Lake in Lehi, UT (Photo by Jeff Cooper)

Least Tern Hunting Over Powell Lake in Lehi, UT (Photo by Jeff Cooper)

Least Tern Resting on Powell Lake in Lehi, UT (Photo by Jeff Cooper)

Last, but not least, and just to add some color to this post, I'll share the cool little bird seemingly sneaking a peek at a nice looking American Avocet that happened to be passing by. I believe the peep, the real one to the right not to be confused with the "peeping" tern, is a Least Sandpiper. Least, least, least.

Least Tern Sneaking a Peek at an American Avocet on Powell Lake in Lehi, UT (Photo by Jeff Cooper)