Animals at Choke Canyon

We visited Choke Canyon last year and were amazed at the animals we saw so we are revisiting. Most parks have an animal or two that makes it stand out. This one seems to have everything. Things we’ve seen on this trip or our last trip: deer (lots), rabbits (lots), turkeys (lots), squirrels, javelina, bobcats, coyotes, turtles, bats, turkey vultures, black vultures, crows, crested caracara, killdeer, grackles, cardinal, green jays, egrets, doves, road runners, red-headed woodpeckers, ducks, coots, herons, swans, swallows, snails, dragonflies and butterflies. 

The coyotes are particularly noisy at night. I think there are coyotes puppies near our campsite.

On one hike there were ~16 turkeys on the path ahead of me. I kept walking toward them but the toms were spreading their tails out in a fan and gobbling aggressively at me. I may be bigger than a turkey, but not 16 of them. I gave up and turned around. When I looked behind me, they had left the trail so I was able to continue on the path. Did you know they seem to poop a lot when they are upset? Something I’ve learned given that section of the path.

There are lots of birds here. I only listed the ones I know. The grackles are loud and make strange sounds. I’ve heard them in what sounds like a person whistling a tune and making a mechanical sound. I heard this hammering / rattling noise and found out a woodpecker was pecking a sheet of metal. Lots of vultures like this turkey vulture.

This one is hilarious. I am assuming this is a dung beetle but I know this is a piece of dung. The beetle is holding onto the dung with its back legs and using its front legs to roll it across the road. Going pretty fast too! 

We actually had bats in our belfry. The problem was this was in the picnic shelter and the bats kept sh_tting on our picnic table.

BTW, the variety seems to extend to cell phone and TV service. Sometimes we get 4G service and a minute later we have nothing. At times we have 4 TV channels and at times we have 40 channels. However, the channels keep moving so we have to rescan to find channels. Having no service seemed easier than variable service!