20 April 2013 - Birding

I think I have mentioned this before, that I do not consider myself a birder: that I just like to know what it is I see.  Well, hmm. I may have to rethink that. Today, for the second time in three months, I went on a birding field trip.

The DWR offered a guided tour to see the sandhill cranes on a piece of the bird refuge that is closed from April 1st to September 1st.  Wow! Sandhill cranes and getting to go into the migratory nesting area? Oh yeah. Jack and I made plans to go.  We needed to meet up with the group and leader in Layton at 8am. Layton is about 45 minutes up the freeway.  I set our alarm for six.  

When we went to bed it had started to rain. It rained all night. It was still raining, albeit lightly when the alarm went off. I decided I didn't want to be tromping around in the muck, turned off the alarm and went back to bed, where I promptly tossed and turned until 6:30.  Decided that I had to go. Kissed Jack good bye and ran. Got to Layton just in time. I was so glad I went. Our leader told us that last year 60 cars went through. People at the end of the line didn't get to see anything. With the rainy morning, we only had 8 cars since everyone doubled up.  It was great. The rain had stopped by the time we got to Ogden Bay.  The entrance to the refuge was solid phragmites. Looking east you can see the mountains are socked in with rain, but up Farmington Canyon, the sun was behind the storm.

It was an interesting place, many estuaries for swimming birds between large wetland areas. It is just barely starting to green up. 

 
Did we ever see birds!  Before we even started on the dike roads, our guide set up a scope and showed us a Bald Eagle's nest. The female was on the nest, and the male was in the tree next to the nest. The ranger who was with us said three babies had hatched. This particular pair has been coming back to the nest for six years. They show up in January and start fixing up the remains of last year's nest, lay eggs and by March babies have hatched.

Next we saw pelicans. Literally hundreds of American White Pelicans. They are huge--wing spans of 9 feet. Amazing. Several of us ducked when they flew overhead.

  

 At one point we stopped and our guide set the scope up again so we could look at a mess of birds quite far away. Settled down on the road was yet another flock of pelicans including a couple Canadas and two or three Sandhill Cranes. There was a large tree right next to this group with a peregrine falcon being harrassed by yellow-headed blackbirds. My little camera could hardly get this in focus it was so far away, but in the scope you could count the feathers on the peregrine. 

The American Avocets are also migrating back north and now grace the waterways around the Great Salt Lake. 

Along with the avocets, the black-neck stilts were represented in very large numbers. 

 

The grebes are also coming back. There were many Western grebes out on the water. I was lucky enough to see some mating behavour. A male grebe came up from a dive with a 6 inch fish crosswise in his bill. He offered it to a female who did not hesitate to swallow it down. I could just hear the dialog, "See what a good provider I will be? Marry me and lay my eggs!" The guy in the car in front of me said there was an eared grebe, and showed me a great picture he had taken, but (insert pouty lip here) I didn't see it. 

Grebes are an interesting bird. They can only land in and take off from water. Their legs are in the far back of their body because they are diving birds.  We had a horrible incident last week during a spring storm with with high winds and rain.  A flock of 12,000+ eared grebes was migrating back north to the Great Salt Lake. They got confused in the storm and tried to land on a wet parking lot. Thousands were killed, or injured to the point where they had to be euthanized.  This was near or on the Toole Army base so hundreds of soldiers and volunteers were out picking up the birds, putting them in boxes, crates or bins and trucking them over to the lake. 

 
 









 





The phragmites were filled with both red-winged and yellow-headed blackbirds.  They are so exotic! Not to mention loud.

And of course, where there is water, there are cormorants. 

Near the end of the trip I thought I saw an eagle in a dead tree off in the distance. I stopped to look. The people behind me were laughing and saying it was just a big knot in the tree.  I took a picture and still couldn't tell.  Back home, after downloading my photos this is what I found. 

 
I have a pair of sharp-shin hawks that often leave similar remains in my yard, consisting of a polished clean breastbone and wings. 
I wonder who was eaten by whom. In my uninformed opinion, these look like raptor wings-- not cormorants or herons. It also reminds me of Native American coup sticks. Quite a sight. 

Also saw a Marsh Wren and several Black-crowned Night Herons. 
The last thing I saw was a nest built in the rigging of a steam shovel. Great place for a nest. I have no idea who built it.


You can see what a a great day I had! Leaving the bay, it began to rain, so hard I could not see to drive. Decided to stop for lunch and hoped to wait it out.  A couple sitting several tables over were commenting how they had been on Antelope Island and it was bright and sunny, and they had driven into a wall of rain coming east. Eureka! I'll just wait out the rain on the island!

It was indeed bright and sunny. The mountains to the east were black with rain and clouds. Headed west, the lake and sky disappeared into each other. Gorgeous. Can you find the horizon line in this photo?

  
 Driving across the causeway took a long time. It is only seven miles long, but I had to keep stopping to look.  Along the shore,  cranesbill (how appropriate is that?) was starting to bloom in great swaths of purple. That is a lot of color for a plant that averages three inches high.

The shoreline along the causeway was also filled with large populations of avocets and stilts.  I had great fun watching these long-legged, long-billed birds poke around in the silt.


But better yet, there were lots of Eared Grebes. They spend most of their time diving. I was absolutely elated to see these birds.

e

They are really fast divers. I got lots of pictures of tail feathers disappearing into the lake. Took me quite a while to get a good shot. 

 I am continually surprised to find how many birds have red eyes.Grebes are another in this list.

 Mixed in among the grebes were coots, red-head ducks and lesser scaups. Lesser scaup males and female below.  Love that bright gold eye.

I haven't figured out who this little bird is yet, but it is charming. 

I also saw a raven, about 20 great blue herons, more meadowlarks and yellow-headed blackbirds. 

 











 



Along with the eared-grebe, I had two other major triumphs for the day. 

One was this loggerhead shrike. 

The other was a chukar. Talk about some interesting markings. The very conspicuous red beak and eye circle, bright pink legs plus the barred sides are just beautiful.

 Quite the day!   Oh, and the funniest part? When we were all convoyed up driving to Ogden Bay, we passed a field filled with the stubble of last year's corn crop. There may have been as many as 15 sandhill cranes poking around the field.  When we got to the Bay and were waiting on the ranger to come open the gate, I mentioned seeing the cranes. Not another person had noticed. In retrospect I wish I had pulled over and taken a few pictures as they were closer than any of the cranes we saw during the trip. 

Driving home, the further east I got, the more rain I drove through, but you could see the mountain tops all had a new frosting of snow. 

I was exhausted and happy when I got home. But my eyes hurt, I was looked out.