![\"nest](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/nest-cavity-tree-1835-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\nOccasionally my photographic pursuit of birds leads me to a mystery. This is one of them.<\/p>\n
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Whenever I\u00a0visit Montana’s Centennial Valley (which is often)\u00a0I make a side-trip to nearby Paul Reservoir, a small, remote and beautiful “lake”\u00a0surrounded by timber and sagebrush. It’s at the end of a long, dirt road\u00a0in Idaho though it’s right on the Montana border and very near the continental divide. I make the trek for a variety of “critter” reasons – moose, deer, badgers, a variety of birds and the potential for other very interesting wildlife.<\/p>\n
But this dead aspen adjacent to the road and very near the lake\u00a0has been a primary draw. The tree and several of its neighbors have nesting cavities used by Red-naped Sapsuckers and House Wrens. Two of those cavities can be seen in this photo.<\/p>\n
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![\"red-naped](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/red-naped-sapsucker-2585-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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\u00a01\/250, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n It’s a difficult place to photograph birds because light doesn’t hit those trees until midday so when it does\u00a0the light is\u00a0harsh and dappled as you can see here. I photographed this Red-naped Sapsucker (probably a male) last summer as it delivered a beak-full of ants to its chicks in the nest cavity. This cavity is the lower one in the previous photo.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ok, here’s the enigma. Very near to Paul Reservoir is one of the trailheads leading to the Continental Divide Trail. Last summer (2014)\u00a0I noticed an old pickup parked\u00a0at the trailhead\u00a0that had obviously been there for an extended period. It raised my curiosity but not quite enough to take a photo of it and I didn’t think about it again.<\/p>\n Until 5 weeks ago when I visited the area once more.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The\u00a0pickup was still there. But now it was surrounded by a very active electric fence that was barely large enough to enclose the Dodge Dakota\u00a0pickup. There were sunscreens on the windows, the tires were inflated and it had Colorado plates. There were no tracks in the grass to indicate that it had been moved recently. The sign in the foreground (within inches of the fence) reads\u00a0“Closed Area – The area beyond sign closed to all”. There’s a little more printing\u00a0at the bottom of the sign that is illegible – the sign has apparently been there for a very long time.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n There’s no source of electricity nearby so the fence is powered by a solar panel attached to the pickup.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The “Closed Area” sign obviously is meant to apply only to the small area within the fence and not to the trail which was\u00a0open and available for use.<\/p>\n Yes, I realize that I’ve gone off on a tangent with\u00a0the primary subject of this post but this little mystery has been\u00a0niggling at the back of my mind for weeks now. Why leave an apparently\u00a0functional vehicle at a remote trailhead for so long? Perhaps it belongs to the Forest Service but the plates are from Colorado and they’re not government plates. If it’s a private vehicle why would the Caribou-Targhee National Forest authorities\u00a0allow it to stay in the trailhead parking area for such an extended period? My curiosity continues to badger me about this little enigma.<\/p>\n Any thoughts from my readers? Perhaps the explanation is an obvious one but it continues to elude me. Won’t be the first time…<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Occasionally my photographic pursuit of birds leads me to a mystery. This is one of them.<\/p>\n![\"old](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/old-pickup-7637b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"solar](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/solar-panel-7639-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"electric](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/electric-fence-sign-ron-dudley.jpg\")
They’re very serious about keeping folks away from the pickup, no matter their native language.<\/p>\n![\"trail](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/trail-sign-7643-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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