|
Three of us from the Uinta Basin have been watching the birding reports, and decided to come up to the Wasatch Front birding for the weekend. We got to the East Canyon Reservoir inlet area about noon Saturday, set up the scope, and saw the hooded mergansers, scoters and long-tailed duck all from one vantage point above the second patch of open water. There were three males and a female hooded merganser, two winter plumage white-winged scoter that we thought were probably immatures, one maybe a male, and the winter plumage long-tailed duck appeared to be a male. The scoter and long-tailed duck were new birds for all three of us, so we were pretty exuberant. We also saw both goldeneyes, bufflehead, pintails, gadwall, redheads, mallards, bald eagles, pinyon jays and other corvids on the drive through the Uinta Basin.
Sunday we wandered around the Bear River Refuge and other parts of Cache Valley, often in wind, rain, snow, sleet and other weird weather. We saw the swans (many at least were tundra swans), along with hundreds of pintails, at least 5 marsh wrens, a dozen or more bald eagles, a couple of rough-legged hawks, kestrels, and at least thirty northern harriers, along with lots of other common stuff. At Cutler Reservoir late Sunday afternoon we saw a flock of thirty or more male and female common mergansers…I’ve never gotten to see mergansers in a flock before.
Monday we drove out to Antelope Island on the way home. The (female) winter plumage long-tailed duck was on the north side of the causeway right near mile marker 4 where she had been reported. My friends got so used to the infallible birdnet that they were actually disappointed when we didn’t see any snow buntings where they had been reported. Eared grebes and common goldeneyes were frequent. We watched a small flock of American Pipits work the windrows on the north side of the causeway, the first ones we’ve gotten a really good, close look at. We also watched another bird right near the pipit flock area. This bird was behaving very like the pipits, but had very strong, sharp black streaks on the front, a dramatic buffy yellow eyebrow over a dark eyeline, and an overall yellowish buffy wash on the light areas. My impression was that it did not have the white outer tail feathers, and perhaps not as long a tail as the pipits. Unfortunately, it didn’t make any noise, like the pipits did. Two of us had watched a similar bird a few years ago over by Saltaire. We think it might be a northern waterthrush. Does anyone have any insights about this?
Notes from the Uinta Basin: the low Water levels and the fog have kept things a bit slow here…we leave the basin as soon as we have any time off this winter. However, I can offer an interim report from our feeder. We have had a male and an immature Harris sparrow hanging out with us since at least late November, and I note we saw one here as late as early April last year. We have our typical thirty or so American goldfinches, and 20 or so each pine siskin, white-crowned sparrows (light lores), dark-eyed juncos (Oregon, pink sided and slate colored mostly), and house finches, and occasional bursts of magpies, red winged blackbirds, robins and scrub jays. We have our usual resident pair of song sparrows and flickers, and a sporadic great horned owl. We seem to be short this year of Cassins finches, and have seen only one cedar waxwing.
Two observations about our recent trip. First, Birdnet really pays off. We drove halfway across the state, and spotted our desired species within yards of where birdnet observers had stated. Our friend that went with us is now determined to join birdnet and buy a laptop computer! Second, and related, I figure you Wasatch Front people must have these ducks tied to the bottom or something!
Clay and Cliftia, and Friend |