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UTAH MARSHES
Wetlands In a Desert State
I shall never forget my first visit to the Bear River Bird Refuge with UNSS.
I was absolutely astounded! Here was a part of Utah I had never known
existed! Marshes! So many water birds, and I knew so few! I could recognize
that a duck was a duck, but which was which I did not know. When I saw the
enchanting chubby little ruddy duck with his big white cheek patches and
the bright blue beak, pumping his head up and down, I could hardly believe
what I was seeing. And the many wading birds -- godwits, whimbrels, black
bellied plovers, yellowlegs -- all on their way further north. The avocet
with its cinnamon head, and the blacknecked stilt with its long red legs,
and their constant calls of "Wheet! Wheet! Wheet!" and "Whit! Whit! Whit!"
The beautiful snowy egret and the tall great blue heron -- what sights!
The black and white western grebes with their strange courting behavior,
and the small chunky pied-billed grebe -- both are such excellent divers
and submarines. They have air sacs that allow them to sink down into
the water.
After a visit to Farmington Bay, I began going in the morning two or three
times a week to see what I could see -- what an education it has been to
truly learn about the birds of our marshes. However, since the floods in
the 1980's, it has never quite returned to what it once was. It is still
a great place to see waterbirds, as is Bear River Bird Refuge. At Farmington
Bay I once saw and took a picture of the Louisiana heron (now the tri-colored
heron), and made the record book for a Utah sighting. The next year I saw the
very tiny least grebe, but had no camera, nor was there anyone to tell about
it. I have been out early in the year, when the tundra swan (formerly
whistling swan) were migrating by the thousands.
The Canada geese are also early arrivals, and begin nesting in March. Great
flocks of many species of ducks arrive -- pintails, mallards, redheads,
shovelers, and cinnamon teal. Many nest at the refuges. Others, such as
goldeneyes, buffleheads, scaups, canvasbacks, green-winged and blue-winged
teal head further north for their nesting, stopping here for food and rest
for a few days.
The great blue heron is always a delight to see. Once I saw a heron catch
a good sized fish, and watched as it worked to get it down. I could see the
fish shape going down the long throat; once swallowed, the bird was relaxed.
I have learned about the beautiful snowy egrets and their brush with
extinction. In an ornithological group led by Malcolm McDonald, a past
president of UNSS who worked as a parasitologist at Bear River Migratory
Bird Refuge, we saw the first
cattle egret which had been sighted in Utah. On their own, cattle egrets
found their way to South America, then on to North America. Now you can
often see them on the way from Brigham City to Bear River -- always where
there are cattle, eating the insects the cattle stir up as they graze.
Other birds that one can see in the marshes of Utah have strange or unique
habits. Killdeer often do the broken wing act if you are near their nest or
young. I have seen avocets also try to divert our attention away from their
young in the same way. The willet seems rather nondescript until it flies,
flashing astounding wing patches. Long-billed dowitchers bob their heads
up and down like sewing machines as they feed. The white-faced ibis look
very dark; the white is minimal, but is there. During the years of DDT use,
one third of their eggs crushed like paper as they attempted to incubate them.
The pelicans have been of interest also, watching a group of them drive fish
toward shallow water, then heads coming up. I once thought they must carry
that pouch of their beak full, but found that they swallow the fish, then
regurgitate fish soup for their young after flying up to a hundred miles to
go fishing. Once I saw a pelican catch a catfish. But when the bird tossed
it to position it to go down head first, the stinging barbs made the bird
toss the fish out in disgust, followed by gargling several times. They nest
only on islands safe from predators. Though clumsy looking on land, in
flight as they turn on air spirals, they are magnificent.
The California gulls formerly nested mainly on islands, but man has added
so much food to their diet that they now nest in the marsh areas also. The
miracle of the gulls in pioneer times truly happened. The gulls, which
regurgitate food to their young, ate the crickets, regurgitated on the
ditch banks, and fed again -- repeating the process for days!
These places are truly treasures ... if you get some time, spend a few
hours away from television and computers, and see what the real Miracle
of Life is about.
-- Dot K. Platt
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