Bison Day 2025

Road Trip! 

I am thankful for the family tradition we have of going to Antelope Island every year for Bison Day. This year National Bison Day was on November 1.

We brought our bison plushie, Otter the Bison, which is also tradition.

Jeremy wore a bison shirt. That is also tradition. We have a lot of Bison Day traditions it seems.

It was a beautiful afternoon and evening while we were there. 

The leaves were falling. At Garr Ranch, a couple of my sons were trying to catch them as they fell. It was Play Outside Day, after all. 

It brought back memories of when I was a child and I used to do that with the leaves from the maple trees in our yard. We only had a few trees around that would drop their leaves. We were mostly surrounded by evergreens. I love living in a place where I can go for drives and see so many different colors of leaves in the Fall. I did love growing up around so many evergreens, though.

I love hearing the rustle of leaves and watching them fall.

We took pictures of some lizards.

Some of us tried our hand at roping.

Some of us checked out the museum and other buildings. Jet got another souvenir penny. 

November 1 was also National Cinnamon Day. We ate brown sugar cinnamon poaster tastries (or toaster pastries as normal people call them) as we were riding in the van.

It was also Vinegar Day. We made the old joke about being bitter when people put up Christmas decorations right after Halloween and completely skip Thanksgiving (not to mention all the other wonderful November holidays like Vinegar Day and Bison Day, right?). We talked about having salt and vinegar chips but we ended up with sour cream and onion.  

 

It was a nice trip. I love family days like this.

There were plenty of "Bye, son" jokes while we were on Antelope Island.

We said, "Bye, bison," when it was time to go.

At the end of the day, we said, "Bye, sun." 

Bison Day 2024

I love this tradition we've adopted of going to Antelope Island on Bison Day. We missed it in 2022 but were able to go last year and this year we made sure to go and of course we brought Otter the Bison, so named because when Jr. first saw the bison plushie a few years ago, he commented how it looked like an otter. Otter the Bison. Love it.

Had to get my bison selfie. I do it the safe way.  

 Jeremy also does it the safe way.

 

Besides seeing bison, we wanted to see birds for the UCB challenge. We got some on the causeway on the way in, some more at Garr Ranch, and some as we drove around the island a bit. 

We just needed a few more. We drove to certain places looking for specific birds.

 

And check out the magpie on the back of the bison. So fun.

 

We saw some birds out in the distance at one point but weren't exactly sure what they were. We wanted to get our 24 species so I hiked way out taking pictures every once in a while to hopefully identify which birds they were. Until my camera battery died and I had not taken the bag with the extra batteries with me. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.

Jeremy managed to get a picture through binoculars with his phone of me hiking through the sand. 

Have you ever hiked through sand? I've done quite a bit because of where I grew up. 

We figured out those birds were horned larks which Jeremy had guessed even before I went down there. 

Later we realized we didn't even need the horned larks for the challenge because we saw a bunch more birds from the causeway on the way out. Ha Ha Ha Ha.

But hey, it made for some good pictures- including me pouring sand out of my shoe.

Besides being Bison Day (and Play Outside Day, the first Saturday of every month), November 2 was also Plan Your Epitaph Day. So as we were driving around Antelope Island, we had some fun.

 

Here lies Jr. Jr. He fell off a cliff. 

His brother said, "It's not my fault you're so shoveable."

Mom: Plan Your Epitaph Day.

Lucky: I'm not buckled.

Dad: Wow. That was fast.

Dad: I think I would get a squid coming down my arm with the tentacles wrapped around...

Mom: It's Plan Your Epitaph Day, not Tattoo Day.

Dad: Plan your epic tat.

Jr. Jr.: Here lies Jr. Jr. His last words were, "What? That's not a bear."

 

Blast From the Past

I don't think I ever blogged about a big deal birding trip for our family in 2017. 

Every once in a while we get to see something rare in Utah. Sometimes they are Eastern birds that have made their way this far West (blue jay in 2018, Eastern bluebird in 2017). Sometimes they are birds we don't see in the Continental United States. Jeremy saw a blue footed booby in 2018.

Sometimes a bird is blown off course in a storm or something and ends up out of its range and in Utah. Sometimes it is a big deal and birders come from all over the state to see it (like the above mentioned blue footed booby). One such bird was one we saw in February of 2017. 

Great Gray Owl.

This was the first time many birders had ever seen one in Utah. 

Jeremy went up to the place it had been spotted a few days before we went as a family and was able to see it. 

So one morning we headed up where it was supposed to be... and couldn't find it. Sigh. We searched for a while and finally decided since we were already North we'd head over to Antelope Island and had a good time there. 

After that trip we said we'd try one more time for the owl. We found other birders who were able to point us in the right direction and we were able to go in someone's backyard to see it. Some people are so nice to let birders come on their property to see birds. Lots and lots of birders.

We each got to see the owl. It was so big it was hard to miss. Largest owl in North America- size wise. Not the heaviest, though.

We made the comment that it was the first time any of us had seen a Great Gray Owl in the wild including Lucky who was just little. A lady nearby commented that it was her first time seeing one and she was in her eighties. So it was definitely a rare bird. One of the Utah County Birders who has been birding forever and has seen more than any of the rest of us said this was his first Great Gray Owl in Utah.

Target bird: acquired. 

It was an unforgettable experience. And now I've finally blogged about it.

Bison Day 2023

We missed out on going to Antelope Island for Bison Day last year so we made sure to do it this year on November 4.

At one point while we were driving around, I said, "See those over there. Those are pronghorns. They're what the island is named for. Pronghorn Island."

We also saw a coyote running around then watched as it got closer and closer to a group of pronghorns. We were able to see the point when they noticed the coyote and decided to move somewhere else. Heh Heh. Nature's cool, man. 

We brought along our bison plushie and we did see lots of bison on the island. 

Jeremy got a kick out of all the birds on the backs of the bison.

We also saw deer so we got all three of the "Home on the Range" animals this trip.

I had Jet saying Hi to the bison statue in the visitor's center and while we were at the ranch, I thought, "Bye, son," as my boys walked away from where I was.

I love Antelope Island. It is such a beautiful place, a wonderful place to see and experience nature and I'm so happy when I can share that with the family I love.