Long-tailed Duck

Today I joined the Bridgerland Audubon Society (photo below) on a field trip to the Logan Sewage Lagoons. This trip was a must for two reasons; the sewage lagoons are one of the best places in the county to find the rare lost sea ducks that should be migrating through in very small numbers, and the only way to bird them is to go with the Audubon Society - they are closed to the public.

It took some work, but we were able to pull one new bird out of the trip. Craig Fosdick spotted a very distant Long-tailed Duck, photo above, on the ponds among thousands of other ducks. Later we were able to relocate the albino Northern Shoveler I found last weekend at the Polishing Ponds, which people seemed to enjoy.

After the Audubon trip, Craig, Jason, and I birded Sue's Ponds and Hyrum Reservoir. Sue's Ponds was still hosting a Lesser Black-backed Gull, a first for Craig, but Hyrum was pretty empty except for a bunch of distant gulls. I'll probably keep trying there, but it has not turned out the scoters like we thought it would. From the posts I'm reading online, it seems that Cache County must be the only place in the state WITHOUT scoters right now.

Winter Wren - Another (Partial) Albino

Thanks to a tip from Craig Fosdick, I finally found a Winter Wren this morning at Guinavah-Malibu Campground in Logan Canyon. This species is an old friend of mine. When I was working in Washington, I'd hear dozens of them every day in the Douglas-fir forests where I did my research. Out here in Utah, they're much more rare.

This particular Winter Wren was very interesting because it was a partial albino. In the photos below, you can see the clean white patch above the bill and on the front part of the crown, with a few white feathers scattered back into the hind crown. This is not a normal part of their plumage - this spot should be brown like the rest of the bird. It was an interesting coincidence to find this partial albino bird and a fully albino Northern Shoveler in two days.

Ferruginous Hawk

Gulls aside, it feels like it has been a while since I spent a lot of time chasing after birds found by other people. Of course, it feels much better to find a rare bird yourself than to chase after one found by someone else, but sometimes it's nice to take a little break and just enjoy someone else's bird, without having to find new rarities on your own. Today I did a little bit of each, but mostly chased after birds found by other people.

Yesterday, Stephanie found a Snow Bunting up Logan Canyon, her first solo find of a rare species, I think, so we went up there first thing this morning. I have seen Snow Buntings before, and they are already on my county list, but all my looks at them have been very distant so I was hoping that this bird would be more photogenic. Unfortunately, it failed to show up for us.

After a break for some lunch while watching some friends play a show at Cafe Ibis, we went to Clarkston to look for the Ferruginous Hawks Craig found yesterday. We did manage to find the Ferruginous Hawks (one is shown in the photo above). This has been a hard-to-find species in the valley, so it was nice to add this one to the list. I've spent several days searching for this species, and I only know of one other individual reported in the county this year.

We then birded some waterfowl spots, but we still haven't been able to come up with any scoters, even though they're being seen all over the state it seems right now. We did find one cool bird that won't add to the list: a pure albino Northern Shoveler, shown below. From there, we raced the sunlight up the canyon to try to find a Winter Wren Craig found earlier today. We missed that bird, probably because it had already gone to roost for the night, but I might try again tomorrow morning.