Great Salt Lake Bird Festival, May 16

I had arrived in Salt Lake the night before,  and my cousin picked me up from the airport. I didn't actually do any birding until noon, when we headed down to Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area after we checked out a motorcycle shop. I knew that this was a good place to look, since I had been here before, but noon wasn't the best time to go. We headed down the road (which was apparently closed...oops) and would stop every now and then to check out the birds around us. Using the spotting scope for the first time was sweet, I could spot things a lot farther away than I could with my binoculars. With it I identified a Whimbrel and a Red Knot. (two birds common to the California coast, but rare to Utah) There were lots of waterfowl on the bay, with pelicans and cormorants sitting on the edge. Franklin's and California were the only gulls present. There were also a surplus amount of Yellow-headed and Red-winged Blackbirds, sitting in the reeds and ignoring my cousin and me. Blackbirds have the tendency to be very loud, but I enjoy their metallic calls. There was a stream intersecting into the bay, where Barn Swallows were zooming around like crazy. There were also some massive fish in the stream, at least five feet long. We watched the fish for a little while since they were so giant. Heading back, we also witnessed some not as large fish battling in the reeds. (possibly carp) They were just going at it in the shallow water, pretty crazy.

On the other side of the man made Goose Egg Island (a small lookout point in the bay) is the Salt Lake Nature Center, which had a heron rookery. I decided to try to digiscope the herons. Digiscoping is taking pictures with your phone or whatever by attaching it to a spotting  scope. It doesn't produce professional pictures, but they're good enough to post.

Two fledgling Great Blue Herons with their parents perched above.

On the look out deck of the nature center, I spotted a Northern Harrier flying low to the ground, and then a Merlin sitting on a telephone wire. After that, there wasn't much to look for around that area, so I packed up the scope and we headed towards our grandma's house.

With nothing to do at her house, my cousin decided to head back to his house. My grandma had done some errands earlier in the day, so she wasn't feeling up for some birding, but she said she'd drive me somewhere. I wanted to head back to Farmington Bay, since I didn't see any Swainson's Hawks yet. That's where my grandma dropped me off. She told me that they were having a big stay there, which is where you stand in one spot for 24 hours and see how many species you can see. The stationary spot was Egg Island, which was perfect, since it gave you a good view over the flat land. One guy was up there, already scoping out species. His name was Shyloh Robinson (still is) and he's been doing the big stay for a couple of years at the festival. I introduced myself and told him that I'd be up in Utah for a couple of years after a mission. He bashed me a tiny bit for going to BYU, but I didn't care, since I bash myself for going to BYU. He told me he had seen a Common Tern flying around the bay, which immediately got my attention. I hadn't found one at Bolsa Chica, but he had just seen it right before I got there so there was a good chance. I started watching every Forster's Tern that flew around the bay, trying to see if it wasn't a Forster's. A mom and her daughter joined the sit for an hour or two, and right around thirty minutes of searching, I found the guy. Yeaaaaaa, Common Tern! Shyloh was stoked that I found it too. He started talking about finding an Arctic Tern at the Great Salt Lake. "I'm gonna will it into coming here, and then I'm gonna be the first to find it." I thought it was kind of silly, but I don't blame him for wanting one to come; terns are awesome.

Another had joined the stay, his name was Jerry Ligouri. Jerry has been studying Raptors in North America since the 80s, and is one of the best hawk experts in the nation. Now, I didn't know that until the day after, but he didn't fall short of this claim. He spotted a Swainson's Hawk flapping high above the bay, and I thought it was pretty impressive, since it took me about 15 seconds to spot it with my binoculars and see the marks. The daughter had spotted a large bird and said it was another heron, but it looked too long and stiff to be a heron. Well it was, since it was actually a Sandhill Crane. I was pretty happy to see it, since I had never seen any species of crane in the wild. But I think the best sight I saw all day was the Northern Harriers. A female was flying kind of low to the floor, just like harriers do, but there was a male following her. He was doing an aerial display, where he flips over and basically does corkscrews in the air while in casual pursuit of the female. It was an incredible sight. After that the mother and daughter left, and Shyloh, Jerry and I decided to scope the other side of the island. We had seen quite a few American Kestrels so far, and that had reminded me to look for the Merlin I had seen not far from here. I didn't have any luck finding the Merlin again.

A truck rolled up onto the island, with a giant Utah Utes "U" on the back. The guy driving the truck was Tim Avery, who had the Utah big year record. (355 species) With his stature, you'd think he was there to hunt birds, not to watch them. He actually just stopped by to say hi to his buddies, since he was going to scout out a spot for a field trip he was leading for the festival. I introduced myself and congratulated him on recently setting the Utah big day record. (205 species) after he left, Jerry came up to the spot where I was searching and I had a lengthy conversation with him. I let him know that I would be at BYU after a mission, just as I had told Shyloh, and that I was excited to be birding up here regularly. He told me that there was a pretty good birding community up here, and that contrary to my thoughts, I would have a good time going to BYU. He had fair enough arguments why, and I gave in. He was gonna head back home soon, and my time had ran out as well, being that my grandma had come to pick me up around 9:00pm. I told Shyloh that I would come back to help him in the morning since I thought he was a cool guy, and then headed off.

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/search