Utah 2025, Day 1

After Antelope Canyon yesterday, my sister said “we’ve come all this way, we might as well see Utah, too,” so we drove up to Monticello yesterday afternoon to stay on the outskirts of town in a geodesic dome under a very dark and very stary sky. Not surprisingly, it was quite cold this morning, but the clear skies also let the sun warm things up quickly.

One of the birds out taking advantage of the nice morning was this stunning mountain bluebird (Sialia currucoides), who I first saw in Big Bend National Park back in 2023, but I didn’t realize it at the time. In any case, it was my sister’s first.

Another was this western meadowlark, who we just saw in Lakeshore State Park, amazingly enough, but who my sister hasn’t seen until today.

I’ve been seeing mule deer nearly everywhere we go, but this morning was the first time I managed to get a nice picture of one.

From Monticello, we drove up to Arches National Park, which turned out to be worth the drive, and one of the sights that made it so was this plateau fence lizard (Sceloporus tristichus).

Another elusive rascal we’ve been seeing since the Grand Canyon is this black-throated sparrow, and today one finally relented.

We also saw a chipmunk at the Grand Canyon, specifically a cliff chipmunk, but they apparently have different ones up here, and this is my very first Hopi chipmunk (Neotamias rufus).

Finally, your blossom of the day is this gorgeous Mojave kingcup cactus (Echinocereus triglochidiatus ssp. mojavensis)