BlueRavenBirders

Melinda and I met up with Aunt Susan (our mother’s sister) in Brigham City. She joined our car and we headed out to the Bear River Refuge. Aunt Susan is one of the most fun and funniest people I know. She’s always been a source of light, love and joy in our lives so when she told me she wanted to go birding with Melinda & me… Well, who could resist having such a spark in the car? We, talked and laughed our way around the refuge (4 hours) and saw an incredible array of birds. There are few photos from this trip because we also saw thousands of mosquitoes. The bugs were so bad they looked like smoke rising from the ground. We did see lots and lots of birds including many diving & dabbling and possibly dribbling & dunking ducks…

Great horned owl with two owlets

American avocet

White faced ibises

1. Cinnamon teal
2. Mallard
3. Tree swallows
4. Forster’s terns
5. White faced ibises
6. Black necked stilts
7. Yellowheaded blackbirds
8. Wilson’s snipe
9. House sparrow
10. Western kingbird
11. American robin
12. Barn swallows
13. Brewer’s blackbirds
14. Vesper’s sparrow
15. Canada geese
16. Killdeer
17. Western grebe
18. Cliff swallows
19. Western meadowlark
20. Bullock’s oriole
21. Wilson’s warblers
22. American avocets
23. Long billed curlews
24. European starlings
25. Ring necked pheasants
26. Gadwalls
27. Marshwren
28. Northern harrier
29. Common ravens
30. American white pelicans
31. Double crested cormorants
32. American coots
33. Northern rough winged swallows
34. Brown headed cowbirds
35. Violet green swallows
36. Clark’s grebes
37. Bank swallows
38. Great horned owls
39. Blue winged teals
40. Snowy egrets
41. Ruddy ducks
42. Ring billed gulls
43. Northern shoveler
44. Black crowned night herons
45. California gulls
46. Sandhill crane

We also saw a Long-tailed weasel at the refuge. This was an amazing day of birds.

We met Uncle Harry at the Maddox restaurant for lunch which was very fun then parted ways, Aunt Susan & Uncle Harry off on their way and Melinda and I up to Logan to visit my brother Dave and his family. It was at his house that we spotted Mule deer crossing the road near his backyard.

— Jenny & Melinda