It’s been a long while since we’ve gone anywhere, but we are finally on the road to visit Bill and Alice in Arizona and Jeff and Debbie in Fresno. Of course, we had to break the trip up by stopping at favorite birding spots, starting at Bear River Migratory Refuge. We haven’t been there for two years, and we were surprised to find that there was an entirely different car route, one that was quite different from the old route. Luckily, we still saw most of the birds that we came here to see, like the White-Faced Ibis and the American Avocet.
We got there later than usual, but that turned out to be relatively lucky because the reflections seemed unusually vivid, as in this shot of another White-faced Ibis.
Although there were more Avocets, my personal favorite, than any other species, there was still a remarkable variety of other birds, like this male Ruddy Duck in breeding colors.
We also saw several Cinamon Teal.
However, we only saw one White Pelican, whereas we used to see up to a hundred on the old auto tour.
We also saw far fewer Grebes than we usually saw on the other route, though that might also have something to do with the time of year we visited.
Leslie took all of these pictures and seemed more than happy with the new/temporary auto tour. The other people I talked to, regulars, seemed equally happy with it. Personally, I was a little disappointed, particularly by the lack of Grebes.