Category: Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge

While processing the photos for yesterday’s post, I kept looking for shots of an Avocet chick swimming which I remembered quite clearly taking. When they were nowhere to be found, I assumed I must’ve accidentally deleted them. However, after I posted the entry, I found them in a completely different folder in Lightroom.

That is what happens when you shoot over 2000 shots in three days on two different cameras. When I got home, I transferred most of the shots from my portable computer, but I had the last days shot on a memory card. Somehow, the shots on the memory card ended up in a completely different folder with no mention of Utah in the name.

Like the Wizard in Oz, I try to keep up an image of perfection on my website. Obviously, I screwed up this time. I could’ve just moved on and posted adorable shots of Western Grebe chicks and left that impression of perfection in tact, but this sequence might be my favorite shots of Avocet chicks and if I didn’t post them now I never would.

Without further ado, here are shots of an Avocet chick leaving the nest,

trying to crawl back into the nest just as the parent decides to leave the nest

managing a long climb back into the nest,

and wondering where the parent has gone.

As the parent returns, the chick is just starting to get back in the water.

As it swims away, the parent returns to sitting on the nest

and the chick turns around and starts swimming back to the nest.

It’s still not clear to me whether the parent wanted the chick to leave the nest or to return to the nest.

I also wondered if the chick would be safer in the surrounding reeds than in the nest. The nest certainly seemed very exposed. We were also bothered by the fact that we saw only one chick and not the three we had seen the evening before. Did something already get the other chicks, or were they hiding in the nearby reeds with the other parent, waiting for their sibling to join them? We preferred to think they were hiding in the reeds, though survival rates apparently aren’t very high for Avocet chicks.

On our first trip through Bear River we didn’t spot a single Avocet chick, though we did spot several other baby birds, probably more than I’ve ever seen in a single day. There were so many Western/Clark Grebe babies I still haven’t managed to sort through all of them.

At first glance I thought these were Mallard ducklings, but once I caught a good look at the mommy it was clear they were the first Northern Shoveler ducklings

I had ever seen. This brood of ducks, unlike most Mallard broods I’ve seen, stayed tightly together, and momma was quite protective, even chasing away nearby ducks.

I’ve seem Pied Grebe chicks before but have never gotten shots like this,

or this, before.

The highlight of the morning, though, came near the end of the auto tour when Leslie spotted this Black-Necked Stilt acting strangely.

Then she spotted this chick through the binoculars.

I couldn’t see it with my bare eyes and could barely find it through the 500mm lens with a doubler on it.

I wouldn’t have had any idea what kind of bird it was if a parent hadn’t been nearby.

Though I was disappointed that we still hadn’t seen a single Avocet chick after driving 800 miles, this single chick

made the morning feel very special.

As Ruth always said, “One Good Bird, that’s all we need.”

This is the first year I’ve ever gone to The Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge more than once, but after John’s earlier comment that I had just been too early to see Avocet chicks I decided I needed to return one more time this Spring/Summer and the second week of June was one of the few times I could fit it in.

Although my primary goal was to finally get a shot of Avocet chicks, the fact is that I find the refuge’s barren landscape nearly as compelling as Malheur’s harsh landscape, perhaps because it provides such a contrast to the lush, green landscape here in the Puget Sound. I’m always amazed that these places are so full of life, and I like to be Amazed. If the ultimate vacation is the one that makes us appreciate home when we finally return, then Bear River must surely be one of the best of all destinations. As much as I love it, I would not want to live there.

I’ve resolved to take a scenic lens on my next visit because it’s difficult to do much more than suggest the environment with a telephoto lens. For instance, Leslie and I were both surprised to see Avocets nesting in huge, exposed, barren salt flats like this.

It seemed far too exposed to provide a safe nesting site.

Considering how many Avocets we saw nesting on the salt flats, it was a little surprising to see this Avocet sitting on a nest in the middle of a shallow wetlands.

Perhaps the most amazing feature are the huge reeds that line much of the refuge, especially when seen in contrast with the barren land surrounding the refuge.

I’ve been to many wetlands, but I’ve never seen any taller reeds than found here.

Even Great Blue Herons seem small in comparison.

The Cliff Swallows ride the top of the reeds waving in the brisk winds that often sweep the refuge.

Although the “lake” is the focal point of the refuge, on this visit much of the action was to be found in the reeds that surround the lake.

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.