White-faced Ibis

Bear Lake National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Idaho is home to about 5000 white-faced ibis in the spring.  The birds breed in colonies in the bulrushes, and the refuge has one of the largest nesting colonies.

Just outside the refuge I came across lots of birds flying in and landing in the deep grass of a hay field.  They eat aquatic insects, earthworms, larvae, and so on, and often find food in damp soil.  I’m not sure why they were gathering in this field.

It was fun watching them glide in and disappear after they landed.  They just kept coming, and every once in awhile a few would poke their heads up to see what I was doing.

I have no idea how many were hiding there, but they tend to congregate in huge colonies.  I was lucky to be able to watch these interesting birds.

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Canada Goose Goslings

Spring has finally come to the Bear Lake Valley in Idaho.  There still aren't many leaves on the trees since we live at nearly 6000' elevation, but the Canada Geese have been here for awhile, and now their babies are starting to appear.  Linda and I drove out to Bear Lake National Wildlife Refuge today, and while we saw hundreds of adult pairs, we only saw three with goslings.

It might be awhile before we see more goose families.  The parents are very protective of their babies and swim with them in a tight group.  After a minute or so, they swam into the bulrushes and the babies nearly disappeared as they blended in to the surroundings.

Who can resist these little balls of yellow fluff?  They will stay with their parents for up to a year.

161 bird species have been counted here at Bear Lake National Wildlife Refuge.  Hay fields in the area are cut to provide feeding sites for the birds, and alfalfa, wheat, and barley are grown around the edge of the marsh to provide food for wildlife.  We are lucky to have this resource so close to home.

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Pickleweed Autumn

Bear Lake National Wildlife Refuge covers about 19,000 acres of the Bear Lake Valley in southeast Idaho near Montpelier, and most of it is bulrush marsh, open water, and flooded meadows.  But, this year I found a surprising landscape on the eastern edge of a public tour loop.

This red salt marsh must have been placed here just for photographers!  There are acres of pickleweed scattered over several large areas east of the main driving tour loop.  Normally this stuff is green, but it turns red in autumn, and this year the color is really vibrant.

 Pickleweed (genus Salicornia)  is also known as glasswort or samphire.  It thrives in salt marshes where it stores excess salt in pod-like sections.  It is edible, in the same family as spinach, and has even become a gourmet delicacy.

We didn’t see much wildlife, but there were insects living in the pickleweed.  We found a few dragonflies that didn’t cooperate very well, but this huge spider (argiope aurantia) posed for photos with a grasshopper that had been a recent meal.  Geese nest in the grassy islands scattered around the marsh, and we found a few broken egg shells.

The red color varies a bit depending on the direction in relation to the sun, so we saw variations of red, pink, and magenta.  No filters were used for any of these photos.

The salt marsh had dried enough to explore on foot, and we found some yellow pickleweed. It added a little variety to the red scenery, and a wide angle lens emphasized the great distance to the mountains surrounding the valley.

Several photographers from our Sharp Shooters Camera Club have been here, and I returned to the scene three days in a row.  I found this Z pattern on the last day.  There is always something interesting to see at Bear Lake National Wildlife Refuge.