Yesterday morning I spotted a lone Common Merganser at Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area nearly hidden in some phragmites and when we came around the corner the bird seemed to have disappeared but after a bit it came out from its hiding spot and gave us quite a show.
Seeing the tail end... of 2013 on this last day of December.
Cute Alert! Whenever I see Western Grebe chicks riding piggyback on their parents I can't help thinking that there is a definite cute factor going on right in front of me.
I'm having a blast meeting and photographing the new generation of Western Grebes at the refuge.
Red-necked Grebes are beautiful but wary subjects in the Centennial Valley. Some day I hope I will have images the show off their beauty in a much better way.
The other day when I photographed the Black-crowned Night Heron at Bear River National Wildlife Refuge I also photographed some Clark's and Western Grebes, I found these two images of this Western Grebe interesting and wanted to post them.
These are but a few of the birds I photographed this week in various Utah locations and all of them made great subjects!
I wanted to share a sampler of bird images that I have taken over the past week in Davis and Box Elder Counties.
One of my favorite locations to photograph birds in northern Utah is Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. I've selected some of the birds there that delight and entertain me while I observe and photograph them.
Three years ago today though the ground was covered in drifts of snow, the temps were below freezing, there was ice on the ponds & lakes and there was a sharp briskness to the air that can only be found in winter.
I photographed these rushing Western Grebes in early June of this year at Bear River National Wildlife Refuge in Box Elder County.
It was an unusual experience to see these Pied-billed Grebes standing upright and walking on the edge of this pond, some might even consider it rare.
This Pied-billed Grebe; photographed at Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area in northern Utah, is a tease. Really, it is.
Here in Utah I am constantly watching the sky for billowing clouds of the smoke of a new fire. We need rain, we need a good soaking.
Grebe chicks are showing up all over at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge (aka Bear River National Wildlife Refuge) in northern Utah and they are just adorable to see and photograph.
During spring and fall migration there can be so many Eared Grebes (Podiceps nigricollis) on the Great Salt Lake that they are impossible to count.
It won't be long before the high, scratchy kweea kweea calls of Clark's Grebes are heard in Utah's Bear River National Wildlife Refuge if they haven't already arrived.
As I observed and photographed this Pied-billed Grebe juvenile it preened some, did a few stretches and fluffed up it feathers.
Enough already, if there isn't going to be a winter then bring on the spring!
Photographing birds during Autumn is a wonderful time for me in Utah, the beautiful fall colors delight and enthrall me, the air gets nippy and I find myself feeling a surge of energy whenever I am outdoors.
I'm looking forward to the crisp cool air after all the summer heat but most of all I am looking forward to the birds I have missed seeing during the hottest part of the year
This spring and summer I've a little been disappointed by how few Clark's Grebe images I have been able to take.
For days it has been raining (sometimes hailing), cloudy and a miserable gray here in the Salt Lake Valley though it seems like two weeks to this bird photographer.
Spring seduces me. Refreshes me. It whispers to me softly to come outside and savor nature and wildlife.
Eared Grebes are the most abundant grebe in North America, there are times I see huge flocks of them on the Great Salt Lake numbering in the tens of thousands.
Two Grebe species that are often misidentified are the Clark's and Western Grebes.