A nice afternoon drive... We went up to Hardware Ranch again, and saw a lot more wildlife than we've been seeing recently. Hundreds of elk were wandering around within view from the visitor center parking lot. Dozens of deer were also there, and we saw lots of deer both on the way in and on the way out. Debbie spotted a couple of Sandhill Cranes out in the ranch's pastures, mingling with the elk. We've been seeing them in Cache Valley for the past four or five days as well. I don't know whether these are migratory cranes just passing through on the way south, or if they're amongst those who summer here. It could easily be the former, because our recently uncovered pastures are full of things for them to eat (perhaps most especially voles, whose under-snow passages are now fully exposed).
The first photo below shows a group of three deer who stopped about 100' away from us as we drove by. Deer seem to be quite unafraid of our Tesla Model X, we presume because it's so quiet. That was taken with my iPhone, on the 2X optical telephoto, handheld. The second photo we took right near Hardware Ranch. That's a flock of turkeys – enough meat to feed half of Cache Valley right there! :)
