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Most shorebirds are finding places to rest and
dine other than Antelope Island Causeway, but I still saw some interesting
things on the causeway and on the island this morning between 6:30 and
11:00. I watched shorebirds and
gulls along the way and their various techniques of catching brine
flies. The gulls are the funniest. The Franklin's stood facing the
same direction in long irregular lines on the shore like waves of flotsam
and snapped at individual flies. They snapped to
a quick-time military cadence--Your left, your right, your
left-right! The bigger California Gulls dispensed with the finesse
entirely. The Californias found a dense mini-pestilence of the flies and
plowed through like a freight train; head lowered, snapping all the way,
and kicking up a bow wave of the flies with their yellow feet as they
plowed along. Both the Wilson's and Red-necked Phalaropes whirlygigged as
one might expect, but I also saw one Wilson's standing on shore employing
the Franklin's left-right snapping technique and others plowing through rings of
fly-flotsam in the water, heads lowered and picking flies from the
surface.
This is a good time to study the differences
between the phalaropes. Here's my version: You might be a Red-necked
if...you have a black, droopy-eyed appearance. You might be a Red-necked
if...you have a shorter, more blunt bill than the Wilson's. You might be a
Red-necked if...your back is a variegated pale gray, dark gray, and white.
You might be a Red-necked if...you only eat by plucking bits off the surface of
the water. I did my best to turn any Red-necked Phalarope into a Red
Phalarope, but I failed utterly, fully, entirely, totally, and
completely.
I saw an albino grebe on the north side of the
causeway between mile marker 1 and the next bridge on the way west.
Probability says it was an Eared Grebe, but it was difficult to pick out those
field marks that would ID the bird with certainty. I couldn't see the
shape of the bill very well on this little white bird against the shiny surface
of the water. I thought the peak of the head appeared to be at the
back as opposed to over the eye where an Eared's peak would be, but my
gut still tells me this grebe was an Eared and not a Horned. I also
couldn't discern a size difference between the grebe and the Eared Grebes around
it. I watched the bird for about a half hour as it gradually moved from
about 200 feet out to perhaps double that distance. Now, permit me a
bit of fawning. This little bird was a keeeeutie-pie!
When it preened and really fluffed up its already fluffy undertail coverts,
it looked like a Tundra Swan in miniature...except for that red eye.
I saw a few other shorebirds--all big
waders--American Avocets, Black-necked Stilts, and Willets. I didn't see
one peep in the 7 miles and I looked hard for them. I was surprised to see
five Long-billed Curlews standing on the road across from the marina. They
flushed when I came too close and I was treated to peeks at their cinnamon
underwings. They landed in the curve of the shore and one landed in the water up
to its belly. I recall that someone else recently posted a sighting of a
curlew up to its belly in water, and I agree with Someone Else--it looked
funny. Seems like this bird belongs upland.
Back on terra firma I saw a Gray Flycatcher
actively foraging and regularly teed up on sage brush around the Visitor's
Center. This flycatcher's habit of letting its tail droop amused me.
It was as if the bird really needed to
maintain the tail cocked higher for balance, then it forgot, allowed its
tail to droop, and just caught it in time before losing its balance. The
droop-catch-droop-catch isn't quite like a phoebe's deliberate tail pumping--the
Gray Flycatcher's tail motion is more absent-minded.
The Rock Wrens were very active. I saw
three or four perched on rocks, on outbuildings, and flying alongside my
truck. I saw a female Bullock's Oriole exploring sage brush and
plucking seeds from a sunflower head...odd place for this bird; migration must
be on. Sage Thrashers wearing their pinstriped
suits and buffeted by an increasing wind veered off the road as I passed
by. And finally, I saw TEN Burrowing Owls; Holy Cow! That qualifies
as a flock, doesn't it? I was flabbergasted. Another observation is
that we humans may think of this diminutive owl as cute, but that
thought doesn't prevail in the bird world. Every time one of the owls
launched for a short flight to another rock, swallows swooping over the
field dive-bombed the owl until it found its chosen perch. I think
the owl's predator status is secure among avians.
If you decide to bird the causeway, bring your gas
mask. The lake perfume is quite strong all the way out. Maybe some
entrepreneur could figure out a way to bottle that air and replace smelling salt
bottles in first aid kits with this unique Utah whiff. And finally,
let this posting serve to assuage Jack Binch's
concerns that the birds up in this neck of the woods couldn't inspire me to more
than one paragraph :^}.
Kris
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