Twelve Years In Utah

Migrating phalarope murmuration

Twelve years ago this morning I woke in Grand Island, Nebraska. I was a little more than 800 miles from my destination of Salt Lake City. I knew the road because I’d driven it many times before but every journey is different and this one was because I wasn’t just traveling through Utah I was migrating to my new home. Eight hundred miles was an easy days drive for me and I listened to the hum of my tires on the road as I enjoyed the changing scenery.

After getting hit with a rock that cracked the windshield on my trusty, old red Jeep on I-80 I thought about stopping to get a new windshield but forged ahead. I watched that crack expand for more than 700 miles. By the time I drove down Parleys Canyon and saw the Salt Lake Valley below the crack was about half the width of my windshield.

The climate was different than the climate I’d left behind in Florida but Utah had what I wanted. It had mountains, deserts, the Great Salt Lake, marshes, red rocks, alpine lakes, forests, changing seasons, and most of all Utah had plenty of birds.

I jumped right in learning how to identify the birds were new to me and what the birds I was already familiar with did here in Utah. I also learned to identify their calls, observed their behaviors, and figured out what they ate. I immersed myself in their world. I got familiar with the plants, flowers, shrubs and trees plus the lay of the land. I very quickly became an expert at spotting birds in my new environment and knowing what to do to get photographs of them.

During the twelve years I have been in Utah I have taken more than a million photos of the birds, animals, and scenery. I’ve had grand experiences and a few that I wish I could forget. Each and every time I go out into the field here I look for the expected and the unexpected and learn something new every day.

I am where I want to be. For now.

Life is good.

Mia

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