Common Sunflower Photos
This morning I wanted to share my recent Common Sunflower photos from Bear River MBR and some of the insects that pollinate these native wildflowers.
This morning I wanted to share my recent Common Sunflower photos from Bear River MBR and some of the insects that pollinate these native wildflowers.
May 20th is World Bee Day and I am sharing a photo of two native bees this morning. The Great Basin Bumble Bee and the Long-horned Bee. Native bees are important pollinators.
Is one of these immature Great Blue Heron images more visually appealing than the other? That depends on the personal tastes of the person viewing them.
I had my best opportunities to take close up photos of Killdeer that I have ever had and I took full advantage of each chance I had with them.
I don't know if the Ring-necked Pheasants eat the midges but I know that many of the other birds at the refuge do so I like to think of midges as bird food on the wing.
I would have been totally skunked yesterday if I hadn't spotted the top of this Red-tailed Hawk's head and some wing movement where it was buried in a sagebrush next to a hillside.
That one midge I saw in the restroom at Bear River MBR did cause me to wonder if the swallows will show up early this year in northern Utah or will the predicted cooler weather cause them arrive at their normal time.
I have complained about the midges in this post because they are messy and annoying but one thing that I feel is critical to mention is that these midges are an important food source for the birds that live and breed at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.
This morning while Antelope Island there was a Loggerhead Shrike perched on a dead branch that was near the north shoreline of the Great Salt Lake.
Midges are an important food source for the birds that live and breed in the marshes and wetlands of Utah and they have recently begun to hatch.
Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge has five species of swallows, they are Tree, Northern Rough-winged, Violet-green, Cliff and Barn Swallows.
Yellow-headed Blackbirds (Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus) can perch on cattails, reeds, rushes or mounds of vegetation and snatch Midges right out of the air.
This spring and summer I've a little been disappointed by how few Clark's Grebe images I have been able to take.
This is the time of the year that "midges" are as thick as flies on you-know-what at the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.