Month: June 2016

Simply Beautiful

I must admit that I’m no longer awe-struck whenever I see a Snowy Egret because I’ve seen so many over the past years birding in California, Colorado, and Utah, but I still take a picture of every one I see, even if it means merely deleting it when I get home.

This was the first Snowy Egret we saw; it was shyer than the other Egrets we saw, but I’ll have to admit that I love the reflections in the setting nearly as much as I do the egret.

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I’m tempted to say that they could be seen anywhere on the refuge, but in most of the pictures they’re wading in water that is one

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to four inches deep,

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though they occasionally take to deeper water.

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Despite its lack of color, this elegant Snowy Egret is simply beautiful.

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A Ruffled Western Grebe

With over 150 shots of Western/Clark’s Grebes taken on the two previous visits, I was looking for different birds not more grebes on our last drive through Bear River. However, while scanning for birds this Western Grebe looked different from others I had seen. It was off by itself instead of paired off, and, more importantly, her feathers looked oddly “ruffled.” A closer look quickly revealed why.

This Western Grebe had two rather large chicks on her back,

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and though it was too far out to hear, one chick was particularly vocal,

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even while its sibling seemed content to doze off.

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It wasn’t until I examined the photos on my computer that I even realized that there was a sleepy third sibling.

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It wasn’t long before we realized that it was dad that they youngster was calling to.

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Dad didn’t appear to have a fish, but he headed directly to the mother and her youngsters and fed one of the chicks.

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Grebes and More Grebes

We may have originally gone to Bear River to see Avocets, Ibis, and Stilts, but we probably ended up spending more time photographing Western and Clarks Grebes. I hadn’t even left the parking lot to begin the driving tour when I spotted this Western Grebe.

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On a previous visit, I’d had the privilege of seeing Grebe pairs performing a mating dance and I was hoping to see the same on this visit. Though most of the Grebes I saw did seem to be paired off, all I saw was some preliminary necking and head bobbing.

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In fact the most exciting moment of Grebe watching in the first two days took place while photographing this pair

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and one Grebe casually scratched its back,

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which was about the same thing we were doing inside the car while fighting off mosquito bites.