Birding/Wildlife Viewing

The Castle Valley Inn actively feeds and provides habitat for a variety of birds.  Pictured above left: house finch feeding right before a brief rain shower.  We can feed up to 72 small birds at a time from our silo feeders.  Above middle: Castle Valley Inn has a wonderful display of migrating humming birds.  These two are a male and female Rufous humming bird.  The past 2 seasons Castle Valley has supported a healthy flock of 21 wild turkeys. Pictured  above right: the wild turkeys take advantage of a quiet moment to dine on sunflower seed below the tray feeders.  All wildlife move freely through our grounds and range along Castle Creek, a tributary to the Colorado River.

We are often asked the question "Don't the deer eat all your flowers?".  Our answer is no.  We do plant deer resistant flowers all over the property.    Above left:  Deer and Daffodils.  Deer prefer to eat native vegetation, which we have in abundance,  mostly sage and rabbit brush.  Our resident herd also have all the natural predators still intact.  We have not disrupted the balance so our herd's population is self managed.  Above right: the girls napping on the grounds in the afternoon.  Resident deer are also free to range the full 9.5 mile length of Castle Valley into the pristine Manti La Sal National Forest and, just to the east of the Inn, to the Colorado River Gorge located directly west of the Inn.  We have removed all of the 75 year old barbed wire fences, which discourage free range and can seriously injure the deer, from the creek bed to give the wildlife access to Castle Creek and our property.