We didn’t get to see the baby Grebes, Avocet chicks, or Black-necked Stilt chicks we went to Bear River to see, but we did see a lot of ducklings, like this (I think) Gadwall and her brood,
lots and lots of Canada Goose goslings (this is my favorite shot of far too many),
and, most exciting of all, this Long-billed Curlew chick as we were leaving the refuge.
I had to take the shot through the windshield so the picture is blurrier than I’d like, but I’ve never seen one before so I’ll keep this shot until I get a better one. The only reason I’m sure it is a Curlew chick is that the parent nearly flew through our windshield as this little guy ran down the road right in front of our very slow-moving car (not a survival strategy I’d suggest for other Curlew Chicks, by the way}.
I’d love to say that I got this shot of the parent as it tried to distract us,
but that would be a lie. I was so focused on the chick and the whole thing happened so fast with the parent flying back and forth and up and down that I couldn’t manage to get a single shot. This shot was taken further down the road when we spotted a couple of Curlew and they, too, circled us protesting very loudly. There might very well have been chicks nearby, but I wasn’t going to stop in the middle of the highway long enough to find them.
Since we never plan a trip just to Bear River (it’s a stop on the way to seeing Tyson’s family in Colorado), we never quite know what to expect when we get there, but we’re seldom disappointed (except the late-summer visit when there were way more mosquitoes than there were birds).
Ending this visit with the first-ever sighting of a Curlew chick made it a memorable visit.
Spotted my first Curlews yesterday in Santa Barbara bay on the sandy peninsula off the marina and break wall. At first I counted four, but on closer examination there were seven as three of them were nestled in the sand. Such beautiful birds!
For some reason, seeing these large shorebirds always seems more exciting than seeing the smaller ones, even more so if it’s a first.
Coincidentally, our day trip with you is the next blog post I’m working on. Lots of good shots that day.
Fortunately or unfortunately, the weather has been so pleasant here that I’ve been spending most of my time outside rather than sitting in front of a computer all day.