As soon as we drove into Antelope Island in Salt Lake City we saw a northern harrier sitting on the fence. I had only brought my shorter lens with me since I hadn’t really planned on doing a lot of birding. I got out of the jeep and walked over to the edge and he still sat there. I was thinking “I really wish I at least had my 300mm lens”.

Farther down the road I made Brett pull over again. There were tons of ducks napping on the bank of the lake. I think they were northern shovelers but maybe there was some other ducks mixed in.

I crept down the side of the bank and it looked like they were all northern shovelers. We get a few in central Florida during the winter but I had never seen this many in one place. There had to have been over a thousand. Every once in a while a group of them would fly off and circle around, landing back on the bank.

Winding our way around the island I was hoping we’d see some buffalo. We saw several when we were here several years ago.

Here was one, feeding down a hill. We waiting for a while for him to look up but he just kept on eating.

We saw another one out in a field and he was walking towards the road. We stopped and the car coming towards us stopped and watched. He crossed the road and walked close by our jeep as he headed the other way. Brett was ready to take off if he turned and headed towards our jeep.

It was a sunny mild day and hardly anyone at the park. Probably only tourist like us visit the park in the winter. After an afternoon driving around and a little hiking, it was time to head to Park City to see some snow.