Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Bear River Bird Refuge

The southern migration has not quite started.  Normally we would see thousands of birds here.  This weekend we saw pelicans, Great Blue Herons, grebes, coots, white herons, and an assortment of gulls.  Here are a few pics from September 27, 2009.  I'll be back out when the birds are moving.

If you are a Facebook friend, you may have already seen these.  We start with some spectacular pelicans in flight.  All white while swimming, they have wonderful black markings on the ends of wings seen only in flight. Click pics to see large.

Pelican on still water. This guy was happy to pose, swimming to and fro for me.

 Pelicans far out, with coots and grebes.
 
Coots "running" across the water.  A coot is in the duck family, black with a white bill. I thought these were cute doing the Coot Scoot!
 
 Great Blue Heron. Couldn't get a good close up of any of these but saw maybe 8 or 10 of them.
 
 Great Blue Heron again, a beauty, deeply colored with black wing ends.
 
Great Blue in flight. Notice how herons fly with their head tucked back unlike swans and geese.

Heron hidden in the rushes.
 
 Beautiful reflective still water all over the refuge today.

Lunch at Brigham City Park with rainbow in the fountain.
 
And deer across the street from my house earlier this week. This photo just happened to get in with these photos.

4 comments:

Bill S. said...

Waterfowl migration has started in my area and they should start migrating to Bear River. Of course the hunter will help them move to the protected areas as our season opens this weekend.
Great photos and story, thanks.

Michael said...

I am SO envious of your sophisticated bird life Becks...wonderful photos too. Thank you.

The Blog of Bee said...

Wonderful photographs. You have a great deal of patience.

Bekkieann said...

Thanks everyone. I'm not terribly proud of the pics, but they're the best of the bunch I took.

Mick, I'm far from sophisticated, but do know a few birds that are common here and try to keep up on events when special birds are passing through. I never get tired of seeing them, even the very ordinary ones. I do feel lucky to live near this major migratory pathway for the variety it provides all year round.