My World: Dedication Point

For the past few years we have added a couple of extra days on to our vacation so that we could take a small side trip to some good birding locations on our way to or back home from Yellowstone. This year we ventured over to the Snake River Birds of Prey Natural Conservation Area located near Boise, ID.

The Snake River Birds of Prey NCA is an area of private and public lands around the Snake River in Idaho that has a large concentration of nesting raptors. The reason for the large raptor population is the large number of prey animals, especially ground squirrels, that are found in the area.

One of the recommended places to visit in the Snake River Birds of Prey NCA is dedication point.

From the road, dedication point did not look like much. It appeared to be just some trails leading off through the prairie, but when you got a little way down the trail you could see what made Dedication Point special.
The point stands atop the cliffs of a wide gorge which had been carved out over ages by the Snake River below.

A little way further down the Snake River sits the Swan Falls Dam which provides most of the electricity for the area.

Although the view from Dedication Point is amazing the real draw of the point are the raptors which nest on surrounding cliffs.

While we were there the only nest that we spotted was a red-tailed hawk nest which was too far aware to get any descent pics, but it was interesting to get pics of the hawks as they flew over our heads.

Even more interesting is when the hawks would fly by at eye level giving us some nice looks of their eyes, wings and red tail feathers.

Coolest by far was when they would fly below us. It is not often that you get to see the top of a hawk as he is in flight.

There were also some prairie falcon flying around but they would not come close enough for me to get a good shot. This was unfortunate, I had hoped to get some good prairie falcon pics, since the Snake River has the highest nesting population of prairie falcons in the world, but we only were able to see them from a distance. I may have to make a trip out to the Dakotas this summer to try for prairie falcon.

There was plenty of other wildlife around Dedication Point including ground squirrels and jack rabbits.

We also spotted several different lizards like this one that was sitting contemplating life on the edge of the cliff. I wonder if he was thinking about jumping because he did not get the part in the Gieko commercials.