Not as much wildlife as I would've liked to have seen, but there were sightings nonetheless
. The following are what I saw:
Isle Royale National Park: A red fox, snowshoe hare, and lots of loons
.
Glacier National Park: A few mountain goats (I could not catch them with my camera), and I narrowly missed seeing a grizzly bear.
Crater Lake National Park: There was a red-tailed hawk circling over the lake.
Yosemite National Park: A few mule deer, ground squirrels, a red-tailed hawk, and Stellar blue jays. I could hear an American bald eagle calling, but I could not locate it. I did not see one black bear during my stay, but I was careful about putting everything scented in my campite's bearbox. Yosemite is notorious for black bears destroying people's vehicles to get to food
. Greater efforts have been made in recent years to reduce this behavior, and so far it seems to be working
.
I've seen a lot of wildlife since moving out to Death Valley National Park. I've seen coyotes, sun spiders aka camel spiders, tarantulas, geckos, horned lizards, a couple different species of hawks, a turkey vulture, swifts (larger versions of swallows), kangaroo rats, skinks, stinkbugs, roadrunners and their cuckoo bird cousins, a Giant Hairy Desert scorpion, and desert snails (they live in hot springs). I had a Great Horned Owl nearly land on me one night before it recognized me as human and took off
. The other night, while I was watching the rare blue moon, I believe three groups of bats all flew at once right over me
. They were small and black.
Outside of the national parks, I saw an American bald eagle while driving through northern Michigan/Minnesota, and I saw a mountain lion walking in a ditch in Montana at night. It was walking toward my headlights as I was driving, and it looked like it was stalking prey. That's the first time I ever saw a mountain lion
. Also, in Montana, I saw thunderbirds at times.
