Pretty quiet day in the field. The golden eaglet is so big now, it eats like a horse when mom brings dinner to the nest and cries for more between every bite – what an insatiable appetite! As I was hiking the Willow Creek trail with my buddy Jay and his family, a gray fox came trotting toward us with three rodents in its mouth. I recognized the fox from our first encounter on the 13th (due to the missing piece of its right ear), looks to be a mother rearing her young kits, hopefully I can get a glimpse of the little ones soon.

On my way out of the park, near the entrance station, there was a mother mule deer and her two very young twins – couldn’t be any cuter! I had just left the park and was on my way home when I noticed a group of coyotes howling and barking to the left of the dirt road. I pulled over and, though it was nearly dark, could make out the shape of a black bear walking through the sage near the large family of coyotes. Hopefully this bear doesn’t wander too far from the park, there are numerous neighborhoods nearby and a bear in a neighborhood is almost always trouble for both the bear and the community. No cubs today, fingers crossed even tighter for cubs tomorrow!