Category: Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge

The Snowy Egret is a favorite photographic subject of mine because of its feathery beauty, its masterful Tai Chi-like grace while hunting.

I’m sure, though, it’s prey must have a very different image of the bird, and I’ll find it difficult to ever see just that aspect of the egret after taking this sequence of shots.

I was watching this egret fishing, waiting for it to strike a graceful hunting pose. I certainly didn’t expect this.

Faster than a Canon can focus, it flew to the top of the dam to confront another Snowy Egret that had dared to intrude on its personal fishing hole.

The intruder obligingly left the scene

which normally defuses the conflict and the winner is content to go back to hunting, but this Snowy Egret didn’t seem content at all,

pursuing the offender until they were both long out of sight.

Apparently it takes more than beauty and grace to thrive in the real world, unless, of course, we expand our definition of beauty and grace.

Yesterday’s picture of the avocet chasing away the Wilson’s Phalarope reminded me of a phenomena I have experienced several times: you’re totally focused on one bird for quite a while and suddenly you notice other birds that you had entirely missed. It seems to be a corollary of the rule that the best way to bird is simply to stand silently in one place and the birds will come to you. I think both are related to a heightened sense of awareness. Too often we get caught up in our thoughts and ignore what’s happening around us.

In this case I was focused on getting shots of the American Avocets, the birds I had come to photograph. Until the avocet lunged at the Wilson’s Phalarope, I hadn’t even seen them, and it wasn’t until my attention shifted that I noticed there was more than one phalarope,

the out-of-focus female Wilson’s Phalarope in the lower left-hand portion of the picture. I’m pretty sure I didn’t even see it when I took this photograph.

I probably didn’t see it until it began to come into focus as the male phalarope landed.

Once I knew they were there, I shifted focus and got this shot of the pair,

perhaps the first shot I have ever gotten of a pair of Wilson’s Phalaropes.

Of course, once I was aware that the phalaropes were in this area, I noticed them right away while birding the area the next door,

though I might well have missed seeing the pair again if I hadn’t expected them to be there.

The transformation from a back-yard bird watcher to an experienced birder has been an interesting one for me. I’m still amazed at all the birds I’ve seen nearby that I missed seeing for the first sixty years of my life and wonder how I could ever have been so unaware of my surroundings.

Of course, I would like to think that taking up birding has increased my awareness in other areas, too, but maybe I’ve just tuned out other channels of information so I can focus on one that I enjoy more.

Since one of the main reasons I went to Bear River was to see the American Avocets, and, more specifically, avocet babies, it’s an understatement to say that I was disappointed when I hadn’t seen a single avocet after my first trip around the refuge. I finally spotted a pair fairly close to the road on my way out of the refuge.

]

Apparently the flooded fields around the refuge must have provided better feeding than the deep water in the refuge itself.

Although it was a relatively small flock, with no chicks in sight, I spent a lot of time beside the road taking shots.

The overcast skies really don’t do the Avocets justice.

It takes the kind of sunshine I got on the second day to make the bright orange on the head and the neck pop.

It’s that orange color that drove me to seek out in vain avocets first. Once I saw a picture of an American Avocet in a Refuge office, I knew that I wouldn’t be happy until I could find a place to photograph them. Unfortunately, the first time I actually saw one, it was in non-breeding colors, and I confused it for a Black-Necked Stilt, which you often find together with avocets.

I’ve always thought that avocets were very mellow birds, unlike the Black-Necked Stilts that seem quite territorial, at least toward other Stilts that are competing for food. So, I was a little surprised when one of the avocets charged this Wilson’s Phalarope, driving it a considerable distance away.

After twenty minutes of watching avocets quietly probe the water for food, I welcomed a little action.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a chick in sight anywhere. I don’t know if I was too late or too early or why there were so few avocets. I’m just happy that I could photograph the ones I did and that I was able to get some pictures because I didn’t see a single avocet at Malheur or Tule during the rest of my trip.

White Pelicans are another bird I have to cross the Cascades to find. Along with the Night Heron shown earlier, I was greeted by this small group of White Pelicans when I arrived at Bear River before the gates actually opened.

I thought they looked quite elegant in the early morning light, preening before catching a morning breakfast.

On the other hand, the group at the same spot later in the day looked a little scruffy,

particularly since they had been joined by two even less reputable vagabonds.

Shouldn’t they have been out helping this large flock of Pelicans out on the pond herd their breakfast up? (Or, perhaps that impression was just created by two very different kinds of light, though.)

Of course, I finally learned what the pelicans were doing last year when I read that, unlike the more familiar Brown Pelicans, White Pelicans don’t dive and catch fish. Instead, they often herd them into a limited area as a flock and then feed on them.

Interesting fact, but it certainly raised new questions for me when I gave it further thought. Do Pelicans pair off to raise young? If so, do they rejoin a flock to feed, or do they use a different means of catching food?

This looked like a “pair,” but I also read that breeding Pelicans had a special bump on their beak, and neither of these do. (Further Googling suggests that breeding pairs may have already lost that “bump” on their beak by this time of year, though they should still be on the nest if they had mated.)

I am initially drawn to birds by their beauty, but the more I observe them the more curious I become about them. White Pelicans are certainly no exception to that rule.