11 April 2015 - Crazy for loons

Last month when I was in San Francisco I saw my first loons. I was ecstatic.  Now, I find they are migrating north through Utah--and they are in their beautiful breeding plumage. There was nothing for it. Road trip!  They had been sighted at three reservoirs. My plan? Simple. See all three and do it on the back roads. 

It was a great plan. I started at Rockport Reservoir. When I was young it was called Wanship and we used to go boating up there on weekends. We would do a little water skiing, have a picnic on the boat, catch leopard frogs in the inlets. What's not to like? Somewhere along the line the name was changed to Rockport.  Wanship is a little town on the spillway side of the dam. It is still there. 

Rockport was a great start to my day. There were Common Loons and Common Mergansers. Sandhill cranes and Osprey also showed up. Many platforms have been erected around the lake for Ospreys to build nests on. I saw six Ospreys. Two were working on building a nest, not on a platform, but on a telephone pole, two were mating on a nest and another two had a nest staked out. 

 I spent quite a bit of time watching this pair bring sticks to bridge the gap between the the two horizontal boards. I have seen so many little birds build nests by carrying materials in their beaks that it had not occurred to me that raptors would carry the branches in their talons. 

Definitely one of those well, duh moments. 

Many of the sticks they brought in fell between the two boards. 

Makes you wonder why they start from scratch when so many platforms are available. 


This pair has the nest finished and they are busy taking the next step for babies. 

I have seen a lot of bird sex this spring. On the other hand, I haven't ever been out looking for birds this early in the year before. 

Obsessed? 

Just a bit. Um--that's with birds, not bird sex.

And my third pair?  Just hanging on their platform. I'll be checking back for babies. And with any luck more pairs will show up. 

The mergansers look very loon-like. These males made me laugh. Eight of them parading in a row past a bunch of females who were clustered on the shore. 



Here are a couple of the girls watching the boys go by. 

I moved along to Echo Reservoir. Only saw two loons, a handful of pelicans, ducks, grebes and gulls. More interesting, or perhaps alarming is a better word, was how low the reservoirs are. 

Echo is very pretty, tucked in a little valley of red rock. 

You see many outcroppings of red rock as you wend your way around the lake.

 The last lake on my list was East Canyon Reservoir. 

The lagniappe on this trip was finding two Golden Eagles building a nest in the cliffs. Again, I was startled to realize that like the ospreys they were carrying stuff with their feet. And look at the size of the branches they are using in the nest. 

Tucked in the rocks around the nest you can see remnants of swallow nests, little gourd shaped mud houses. I bet they don't come back to these since the eagles moved in. 

About one hundred feet down the hill from the nest, I watched a badger prowling around the rocks. Wow. First live badger I have seen! This was really an amazing day. I love it when you are in the right place at the right time. 

On my way up the canyon I saw quite a few nests like this--all with a head at the top. I am fairly certain this is a Red-tailed Hawk, but I wouldn't bet the bank on it.

East Canyon Reservoir is also very low. 

 

But it had loons galore. I counted up to 75 in the part of the lake I could see. By the time I reached this third lake it was after six. The loons were calling. I was mesmerized by it. Beautiful, eerie, haunting and lonely. Another first for me. Just writing this gives me chills. 

And if this wasn't enough, we had a rather rare bird show up on the lake, a Red-necked Grebe. I found it too. Frabjous day! Callou callay, she chortled in her joy. 

It's a good thing I travel the back roads. I need a sticker that says I brake for birds. I was driving on a bridge over the Weber River when something flashed in front of me. I screeched to a stop in time to see a Belted Kingfisher dive into the water. He came up with a fish. 

How many ways can I say what a wonderful day?