Had another rare bird show up in Utah. Road trip! Max, Bryant and I piled in my car and hit the road at 6:30 am for a trip to Flaming Gorge Reservoir in the northeast corner of Utah, where Wyoming sits in the cut out. Took us three hours to get there. Round trip was 391 miles. Our route took us through Wyoming. In Evanston we hit -14 degrees. Brr. We drove through many heavy fog patches—so heavy that frost was forming on the hood of the car and on the inside of the windows. The coldest we got was -18. It wasn't easy to use the camera when fingers are really cold. The high for the day was 16 but it didn’t last very long.
This was one of those miracles where you pull up to the reservoir and as you are getting out of the car you say “There it is!” We stayed about 20 minutes trying to get a decent photo. Hard to do through the fog and snow.
Our target bird was a Great Black-backed Gull. It is the largest gull in the world. 30 inches in length with a 54 inch wingspan it is only slightly smaller than a small eagle. Amazing. They also like to eat ducks. They are usually found along the Atlantic Ocean. Don't know how it got here.
With nothing for scale, it is hard to realize just how big these birds are. Those white specks against the black back is the fog condensing and falling like light snow. Everything was covered with hoar frost. Even cattle in the field were covered.
Here you can see how it dwarfs a Herring Gull, which is the biggest gull we have in Utah. 
Since we were there and found it so quickly, we spent several more hours birding around the area. We drove up Sheep Creek Canyon, which was gorgeous. And true to its name, we saw sheep. A small herd of Bighorn sheep. Fun!! You can see the hoar frost in this photo.
One of the sheep was wearing a collar with a transmitter. Poor thing. The tag is pulling his ear down. The DWR is trying to keep tabs on where many of our endangered species are.
We had a herd of Bighorns on Antelope Island, but in the last month almost all of them have died from some unknown respiratory infection. The few that are still alive will be killed to keep it from spreading. This herd was doing so well that it was used to repopulate other areas in Utah. I think the plan is to import some fresh non-infected Bighorns from California to renew the herd, but it will take years to get a population going again.
We also found a pair of Pygmy Owls. At 5.5” high, they are smaller than my hand and are the second smallest owl. Biggest gull, almost smallest owl. Yes, it was a really fun day,
Thank goodness I'm not a drinker. I did not have to get up nursing a hangover this morning. However, I did have to get up to participate in the Annual Jordan River Christmas Bird Count which is part of the Audubon Society's annual bird count, now in its 119th year.
In America's storied past, the big thing to do on Christmas was to go out kill things. Instead of counting birds, people went out to see who could kill the most animals and birds. Back in 1900, the curator at the American Museum of Natural History started getting people involved in counting birds instead of killing them. This count has evolved into a huge database of information that lets scientists and naturalists follow how species are doing, or not doing as the case may be.
I was part of the Galena team, a four mile stretch along the Jordan River that took us six hours to complete. It was bitterly cold. The breeze added to the cold factor, trying to freeze any uncovered skin. I think near the end of the count we finally hit a high of 26 but it was around 16 degrees when we started.
The Jordan River is kind of in the middle of the valley. To the east are the Wasatch Mountains.
And to the west you can see the enormous tailings piles from the Kennecott (now Rio Tinto) copper mine.
There were ten of us on the Galena survey armed with binos, cameras and Little Hotties to stuff in our gloves and boots. We were all trying to spot as many birds as possible, and Bryant, our fearless leader, was writing down every species and how many.
The most unexpected bird was a Virginia Rail in plain sight, letting everyone have a good look. These little birds hide in the reeds around water and while you can often hear them, they aren't that easy to find. This little guy practically posed for us.
We were all ready to head home for hot showers to warm up. Viv and I decided we needed to indulge ourselves after the long cold walk and stopped at Gardner Village. The Chocolate Covered Wagon candy store has the best hot chocolate I've ever had. And we needed that hot drink! Yummy and warming.
