The State of Oregon Bird - The Western Meadow Lark, greeting Mickey and I as we were about to start up the trail head at Lower Table Rock near Medford, Oregon.
The first sign that you see as you are walking up the trail....it makes you really think about being glad for having ankle high boots and jeans on...however more than that it made me really think about watching where I was walking!
This is a Lark Sparrow!!! I had never seen one before and this one allowed me to sneak closer and closer to finally get some really great close-up shots of him. There were several sightings of these birds throughout the day. They were low flying across the tops of the meadows and seemed to do a lot of walking within the meadows eating small seeds off the grasses.
On the top of Lower Table rock earlier in the spring there are what is called "Vernal Pools" If you want to read more about vernal pools here is a really awesome BLM pdf file url! enjoy!
http://www.blm.gov/or/resources/recreation/tablerock/files/vernal_intro.pdf
There was a small area with a tiny bit of water that the song birds came to drink from. Mickey pointed out a pacific tree frog to me as well...they are so tiny!!!
This green area below in my picture is where the vernal pools were located in during the winter and early spring seasons. The mountain in the background is Mount McLoughlin...usually by now there isn't that much snow at the top of it, but our winter hung on through spring this year.
There were many butterflies on our hike - unfortunately I filled up both of my memory cards so I didn't get to take all the pictures I wanted to of them. This is called Mylitta Crescent and I think it is a female....
This flower is from the Orchid family and is called Hooded Ladies Tresses or Spiranthes Romanzoffiana (what a mouthful!)
Here is Mickey hiking out toward the far end of Lower Table Rock. We didn't go all the way to the end because we got side tracked with the small flowers and insects around the vernal pool areas and then several families with children had arrived. It made me think back on when my boys were small and at 3 and 4 years old they did this hike with no problem. Kids have so much energy and for me this was a much harder climb than it was 15 years ago!!!! hah!
This little flower is Downingia Yina also known as Cascade Calico Flower...it was in many areas around the vernal pools.
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