|
Hi All!
Today was winter eagle survey day for us from the Bear
River Bird Refuge staff. Karen Lindsey counted birds on the refuge, while
our biologist, Bridget Olson, and I counted along the Promontory
Road. Bridget and I only found 2 bald and 2 golden eagles, and we did
"occasionally" allow our eyes to stray to other "non-survey"
birds...
Although we found nothing you all would consider
very "rare", we did find about 40 ring-necked ducks in the pond at the
Thiokol Ranch - which we were led to believe are not all that common out here
(Bridget and I both came from Minnesota this fall - they're very common
there). SOME of the other species observed included:
Horned Lark
American Pipit
Northern Shrike (one - no Loggerheads today)
Spotted Towhee (my 1st in Utah - lifer for
Bridget)
American Tree Sparrow
Vesper Sparrow
Song Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Western Meadowlark
Pine Siskin
American Goldfinch
I have to tell you the siskin story. We started hearing
this racket of bird song as we drove along with open windows. There
was a copse of about a dozen trees on the east side of the road and we could see
a lot of blackbirds sitting in them, but we noticed they weren't the only
species flying in and out, so we pulled over to check it out. As we
started to scan the trees, we noticed there were quite a few pine siskins.
As we scanned more trees, there were more and more siskins. The trees were
loaded with them - they were everywhere - like tiny, brown, noisy Christmas tree
ornaments. In the end, we decided there had to be a minimum of 300,
probably closer to 400, maybe more. I've never seen so many siskins in one
spot in my life! But the best part of the siskin story is that this was a
"life" bird for Bridget - it's not often you see several hundred of a
life bird!
The other thing we were amazed at was the amount of bird song
we were hearing as we drove along the road; particularly the meadowlarks, the
red-winged blackbirds and the white-crowned sparrows. It was like May
in Minnesota - VERY cool! A most enjoyable day for both of
us.
Betsy Beneke
Perry, Box Elder County
Also, Outdoor Recreation Planner for
Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge
|