wildlife at Bear River Bird Refuge

I live right near the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and shoot there 2-5 days per week. Right now the Grebes are doing their water dances, the avocets, stilts, killdeer, geese, ducks, etc are on eggs & young are appearing. The river is flowing over the road but it is passable & keeps the visitor numbers down. The wildlife shooting is very good. If anyone needs info or is coming to the area, feel free to e-mail. Thanks.

Fantastic! Now, if I only knew where it was, I'd be able to figger out whether I should plan on visiting soon or whether it's too far to travel to easily. What state is it in?

Try your search engine and type "Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge".

Simple - eh?

Utah. Near Brigham City I think.

Bear River NWR is outside Brigham City, Utah. I was just there recently ("hi, Dan" - I was the Canon dude with the Acura who didn't want to risk getting stuck on the flooded entry road). Despite the flooding, there was plenty of opportunities to shoot outside the refuge, including a nice breeding plumage lark bunting in this, the western-most portion of its normal range (though I've seen one at Malheur NWR in Oregon, of course). Lark bunting probably doesn't excite Dan or others who live in the area, but it was only my second look at one in breeding plumage and being able to shoot it from about 15 feet away was a nice treat!

 

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As far as the Great Basin goes, I rate it as second only to Malheur in terms of birding. For photography, it's an easier place to shoot than Malheur for birds like avocet, stilt, ibis, and grebes in most years, I think, as these are less numerous and less car-tolerant species at Malheur. On the other hand, Malheur gets the best selection of passerines during spring migration of any spot in the Great Basin. And rails, Virginia in particular, are ridiculously easy to shoot at Malheur if you use a tape.

 

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Bear River is also near the Wellsvilles mountains and Logan Pass further west, and last week the road from Brigham City to Menden and Wellsville was bordered with a fantastic display of wildflowers. I went over in part because the Wellsvilles are host to a raptor monitoring project (many of you know of my involvement with raptor work during the fall in the Goshute mountains of Nevada). We count there in the fall, so I wanted to check it out in the spring while I was in the area, though I chose not to hike to the top (3.5 miles/3K elevation gain!). If you can stand the hike (with water), the Wellsville hawkwatch is a great place to photograph migrant raptors as they pass very near the observation. We don't trap there - the Goshutes site, where I trap (for banding) each fall, has more birds but most which pass by close are caught before they get to the observation site, reducing photo ops. On the other hand it's a much easier hike (2.5 miles/2K elevation gain).

 

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Bear River NWR is also on the route from the Goshutes to Teton-Yellowstone, so I stopped in last fall and saw a baby (downy) grebe on the back of its parent. Doomed, I'm sure, being hatched that late in the season as it was the third week of September, but still a treat!

 

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I'm planning to add a brief section on Bear River NWR to my collection of mini-guides I'm (very slowly) putting up on my web site (donb.photo.net). Should be there in time for next spring...