Fish Springs and Delta on tax day

["L. D. Giddings" <seldom74 at xmission dot com>]

I made my annual April trip to Fish Springs yesterday. The roads out to
and the ground at the refuge were dry and firm. The weather was cool and
breezy in the morning, but the winds calmed around 2 p.m. and it warmed
right up. 60 species were observed. My favorites of the day were an
American bittern, blue-winged teal, and the black-throated sparrows on
the hillside to the west of the main road. Notable absences (or at
least, if present I did not see them) included sand-hill cranes,
white-faced ibis, great egrets, and *all* shorebirds except American
avocets, black-necked stilts, willets, long-billed curlews, and
killdeer. There were no peeps of any kind anywhere to be see. The most
interesting bird of the day was an American coot displaying partial
albinism: 33-50% of the feathers on its head, upper back and shoulders
were snowy white. The most unusual bird of the day was a spotted towhee,
acting for all the world like a thrasher rather than a sparrow, as it
raced from salt brush to salt brush along the eastern edge of the Egret
pool. I mention this only because the new and very nicely done Fish
Springs Wildlife List states this bird's abundance as being rare and
only in the Fall.

As I made my way to Delta in the early evening I stopped at an inundated
field on the southeast corner at 1000 North and 1000 West, across from
the Millard County Road Department. The water was deep enough in places
for various ducks, mostly mallards. There were probably 2500-5000 birds
present. Most were California and ring-billed gulls, black-necked
stilts, American avocets, and killdeer, but there were also several
hundred white-faced ibis, 75-100 long-billed curlews, numerous
dowitchers (presumably long-billed), 50-75 marbled godwits, 3 greater
yellowlegs, 25-30 cattle egrets including several in the most beautiful
breeding plumage I've ever seen for this species, and a large mixed
group of both Franklin's and Bonaparte's gulls. There were at least 24
of the latter, although undoubtedly I may have missed more in the chaos
of a flock of birds this extensive.

Lu Giddings


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