May 30 2016 Craters of the Moon
Trip with John, Bill, and Charissa
Spring is the best time to visit Craters of the Moon National Monument https://www.nps.gov/crmo/index.htm. The black lava dirt blooms with low growing flowers in all of the shades of the rainbow. The days are warm and sunny though frequently windy. Later in the summer it is way too hot. If you take kids with you I recommend that you also bring water pistols. One of our best pranks was to take my niece and nephews into the amazing lava tube caves. These caves are lovely and cool and dark and the water surely came from above, not from some nutty adult relative… This trip I had no youngsters to prank so left the squirt guns at home. I was looking for wildflowers and birds.
Brewer’s blackbird
Golden mantled groundsquirrel 
Lava and dead tree
Flow texture 
Lava for miles
Wildflowers 
Wildflowers 02
Lava arch 
Monkey flowers
Lava window 
Cool very old tree
Pahoehoe lava 
Blue dragon flow (note blue irridescence)
Birds of the day:
Golden eagle
Red tailed hawk
Swainsons hawk
Rock doves
Eurasian collared doves
Robins
Western meadowlarks
Black billed magpies
Brewers blackbirds
Red winged blackbirds
American crows
Common ravens
Rock wren
Northern rough winged swallows
Turkey vultures
Horned larks
Brewer’s sparrows
Mourning doves
— Jenny
BlueRavenBirders 