It’s great to see all kinds of birds you seldom see, but what often brings me back to a place is not seeing birds I’d hoped to see. I’ve probably seen enough Avocets, White-Faced Ibis, and Black-Necked Stilts, not to mention Western Grebes and Yellow-Headed Blackbirds, to keep me satisfied until next year, but there were lots of birds I’d hoped to see that I didn’t see nearly enough of.
For instance, this is the only shot I got of Eared Grebes in one of the few places I normally see them.
I didn’t even realize they were Eared Grebes until I put them up on the computer screen.
I managed just one shot of another favorite, the male Ruddy Duck,
and it was so far out that I had to crop two-thirds of the picture to get this. Needless to say, I didn’t bother to keep the digital negative after I printed this.
This is may be one of the best shots I’ve ever gotten of a Redhead Duck,
but it’s the only one I saw, and it was a long ways off. I would have loved to have gotten some better shots.
I did see several Night Herons, but they were extremely skittish and flew off before I could manage a decent shot. This immature Night Heron
was the only decent shot I got.
I can usually count on seeing large flocks of pelicans at Bear River, but we only saw a few of them close up on this trip.
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Of course, the pictures you CAN’T see are the ones I really wanted to get. I would have loved to seen baby Avocets, baby Black-Necked Stilts, or even baby White-faced Ibis, but apparently I was there too early.
I may just have to return for another visit in the near future now that I’ve almost gotten through all the shots from our latest visit.