Even Though Bald Eagles Are Starting To Dwindle Bird Watching Is Just Heating Up

If you’re starting to see fewer and fewer bald eagles over the past several weeks, you are not alone.

I struggled to find even one eagle today and only four in the past week so it appears the bald eagle viewing season here along the Wasatch Front is starting to come to an early close.

With how relatively warm and dry our winter has been, it’s no surprise bald eagles have been few and far between here in northern Utah for much of the winter.

But overall, bird watching is just starting to get good with a few more early migrants showing up at Farmington Bay over the weekend.

On Saturday, I came across a pair of sandhill cranes very willing to pose for the camera just a stone’s throw away from the road.

I have already seen a handful of sandhill cranes on the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge auto tour route over the past couple of weeks but none of those birds were anywhere as close as Saturday’s encounter at Farmington Bay.

The pair of cranes seemed at home just a few dozen yards away from the asphalt road where a small traffic jam occurred when numerous bird watchers noticed the strikingly beautiful cranes so close by.

From what I was told by a Utah DWR employee a few minutes later, a pair of sandhill cranes nest on Farmington Bay each year, making me wonder with how casual these two cranes were with the small crowd nearby if they were the nesting pair from last season since sandhill cranes do mate for life.

The sandhill crane migration is underway and many of the cranes end up in Canada and Alaska to breed but northern Utah does have a small population of breeding sandhill cranes bird watchers should keep an eye out for each summer.

I usually see at least one breeding pair of sandhill cranes with chicks, commonly referred to as colts, each summer on the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge auto tour route.

Another early sighting for the avid bird watcher also came on Saturday at Farmington Bay when I came across about 100 American avocets feeding in the shallow waters on Unit 1 just south of goose egg island.

It is not the first sighting I have had this year for the American avocet as a couple of weeks ago I came across three small flocks flying overhead as I walked the dikes at Farmington Bay.

Typically, I don’t see American avocets until late March or early April but this year my first sighting was actually during the first week of February, causing me to scratch my head on what motivated these shorebirds to migrate back to Utah so early.

Many American avocets come to the Great Salt Lake wetlands, including Farmington Bay and the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, to breed each summer.

The large flock of American avocets Saturday were all in their colorful breeding plumage while the earlier sighting of avocets was still in their drab winter plumage.

All in all, even though the bald eagle season seems to be fading fast, several early arriving species of birds have been showing up at Farmington Bay this year, including American white pelicans, white-faced ibis, American avocets, and a reported ruff, a well-feathered bird that is quite out of place here in Utah.

Now is the time for us bird watchers to dust off the spotting scopes and binoculars and head out and look for birds as new bird species are starting to show up here in northern Utah quite readily and oftentimes a bit earlier than normal.

If you are an avid bird watcher like I am, I offer you to head on over to our subscribe page and sign up for email notifications for future blog posts.

We will keep posting what we find and where we find it for anyone looking to get out and enjoy the wonderful hobby of bird watching.

I’ve been a bird watcher since I was quite young and I have no intentions of slowing down so I hope through this blog I can share my love for birds so other people can enjoy them as much as I do.

We also have a small but growing YouTube channel where we occasionally post short video updates about the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge as well as short nature clips when we can capture them on film.

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