Tom's National Park Adventure

I thought I had already sent this out this morning. However I couldn’t find this mornings post, so here is the cliff notes version.

I made it to Zion yesterday with enough time to set up my home for the next three nights. I made myself some dinner and then went to a “Ranger’s talk”.

Fun things I learned at the talk include: Did you know that Zion NP is the only other location to have nesting California Condors outside of California! The Ranger also talked about the birds in the park and about bird migration.

Of all birds that migrate on an annual basis, 50% only move during the evening hours. There is the thought that they feel safer flying at night. They become harder to see! Because there are so many birds moving around at night, light pollution becomes a very big problem for the birds. The birds use the stars to navigate and that is harder to do when there is too much man made light at night.

They put up a map showing what parts of the country were lit up brighter.East of the Mississippi River is much brighter at night. The brightest spot in the entire world at night is Las Vegas! Makes sense.

I drove to Bryce Canyon National Park today. I will post about it in the morning.