Category: Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge

Although a Utah birder told me that the White Pelicans weren’t very active yet and that the best time to see them was in late summer when carp are exposed by low water and in winter when freezes kill large numbers of carp, I was fascinated watching small flocks fishing, or at least that’s what they seemed to be doing.

In fact, they almost seemed to be “rowing,” or perhaps “herding” fish because they would all duck their head and raise it at the same time, all the time moving steadily forward. Of course, it didn’t take long to clarify this online:“Instead of diving for food the way brown pelicans do, white pelicans swim on the surface in a semicircle and herd the fish to shallower water near the shore. Then using their pouches as fishnets, the white pelicans submerge their heads and necks and scoop up the fish.”

Luckily I didn’t reveal my ignorance by saying that I had hoped to get pictures of them diving for fish like the brown pelicans do on our coast. Doesn’t take too much thought to realize that diving into shallow water like this would be far too dangerous while it would be nearly impossible to herd fish in the ocean using this technique.

Once again I felt I really needed to read the instructions on how to switch my Canon EOS 5D on film mode so that I can capture moments like this, but there are so many other aspects of still photography that I want to explore that I keep resisting spending the time on film making.

Instead of worrying about what I don’t know and don’t have, I focused on what I can do best, capturing still shots, and, luckily, this is probably the closest I have ever gotten to White Pelicans. This one was so close that I had to join two shots together to get it in the frame.

This one was further away but there was more light, which revealed a very different colored Pelican.

And, of course, with a 1000mm lens (500mm x doubler) you can almost reach out and touch the pelican’s bill, (especially if you click twice on the picture)

which certainly reminds us just how ancient these birds are.

I guess I didn’t realize how many birds I saw at Bear River Migratory Wildlife Refuge until I started posting about my visit. I was amazed at the number of species nesting on the refuge, birds I only see in the winter or during migration. In retrospect, it’s an even more remarkable place than I thought it was the two days I was there — and I already thought it was very special.

I see Common Terns in many places and I’m always trying to capture shots of them in flight,

especially hovering just before diving.

What I’ve never seen before, though, is them constructing nests. I’m sure I was anthropomorphizing while watching these two Common Terns building a nesting site, particularly since we just spent a week having our house repainted. However, it really seemed to me that this (female?) tern was berating her mate about how slowly the nest-building was going.

Eventually, the mate showed up with a rather large stick in its beak

and spent an inordinate amount of time deciding exactly where to place that stick — so I’m assuming it wasn’t just a pile of sticks, that at least one of them had some sort of “plan” as to what this nest should look like — I suspect it was the female.

Once again, I really wish I’d had another week or two to see how this nest proceeded. I’m going to have to coördinate my trip to Colorado next year so that I can stop before and after my trip to have a better chance of seeing the birds while their nesting.

As already noted, I went to Bear River primarily to see Avocets, but I wasn’t at all surprised to see a large number of Black-Necked Stilt there. In fact, I can’t remember ever seeing Avocets without also seeing Black-Necked Stilt, though I have seen Black-Necked Stilt without seeing Avocets.

It’s hard to say whether there were more Stilts or Avocets, but if you click on this shot you’ll see a single Avocet in the middle of this flock of Stilts.

Black-Necked Stilt often get territorial, chasing other stilt away, but I’ve never seen one try to chase away an Avocet, even though they are often feeding quite close to each other. Why is that? Do the stilts and avocets eat different food, so they don’t see them as competitors. If they don’t eat the same foods, why do they appear in the same environment so often? Although many sites link them together, none discuss similarities or differences. Frustrating.

For the moment, I guess I’ll have to be satisfied admiring their delicate beauty,

and marveling at their long, thin legs

Those long legs give the impression that the Black-Necked Stilt is a large bird, but seeing them next to the smallish Cinnamon Teal reveals how delicate they really are,

an impression reinforced by this close-up.

I knew when I heard two years ago that the Great Salt Lake is one of the primary breeding areas of avocets that I would have to go there to see them . And see them, I did. They were throughout the refuge, from wetlands to dry lands.

Of course, I expected to see them wading in the wetlands because that’s where I have always seen them at Sacramento and Malheur, In fact, I tend to think of them as “shorebirds” because I’ve always seen them wading

while sweeping up food with their long, curved bills.

I didn’t drive two states to merely see them wading in water. I actually came to observe them during breeding season and hopefully to get some shots of them with chicks.

I was a little surprised to see Avocets strutting across what appeared to be sand dunes,

which also turned out to be a nesting area. In fact, a barren area just before the auto tour had been taped off because it was an Avocet nesting area. Their nests turned out to be little more than hollows in the sand lined with small sticks and brush.

The greatest surprise, though, was learning that Avocets used the same ploys that Killdeer use

to lead predators away from their nesting area. This one must have spent ten minutes trying to tempt me to follow it away by dragging it’s wings on the ground and fluttering in the dirt. I’m not sure, but it seemed that even females who didn’t have a nest were intent on leading me away from an area where several Avocets could be seen sitting on nests.

Unfortunately, I turned out to be too early to get pictures of Avocet chicks; locals weren’t sure whether the egg laying was late because the weather had been cold or if it was just too early to see chicks. I’ll have to find out before returning next year.