If you asked me to describe in two words or less how birdwatching was going this year on the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge auto tour route the only term coming to my mind as I sit here and write would be, well, “consistently inconsistent”, at least from my own experience that is.
Now before I lose you with such a somber opening paragraph I will say I’ve had some great birding days on the refuge this year, days where birds were literally around every corner and quite willing to sit and pose for the camera.
But I will also say I have had other days where the birds were in very short supply, especially lately and, well, ever since the duck hunt started a couple months ago in early October to be more precise.
This past Monday was one of those days where the birds on the refuge auto tour route were almost non-existent, but not due to the duck hunt per se.
A dense fog bank blanketing the bird refuge was the culprit and even what birds I could find were very hard, if not downright impossible, to photograph due to the very low light.
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Lately, we’ve had some up and down days here in northern Utah with regards to temperature and moisture and, as a result, quite often this time of year fog will settle in over the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge wetlands and the adjacent Great Salt Lake.
The dense fog was, in fact, quite a shock to me when I arrived on the refuge Monday morning as the rest of Box Elder County was perfectly clear but where you have open water and warm winter days followed by cold winter nights fog is most certainly going to appear as the warm, saturated air cools for the night and releases that moisture in the form of fog.
Eventually, the fog will burn off when the sun rises and the air warms back up but before that happens the scenery left behind can be quite breathtaking, even at the expense of a planned morning of birdwatching and bird photography.
And that is exactly what I was faced with on Monday morning, a thick layer of fog that literally started at the main parking lot and only got thicker the further I drove the refuge auto loop but it did eventually start to lift as the morning progressed and the temperature began to rise.
All of the photographs for this particular blog post, including a short image gallery below, were taken on Monday morning in the thick fog and even though I came to the refuge for birds it was the scenery that quickly grabbed and held my attention when the fog started to lift, giving way to some spectacular scenery that more than made up for the lack of birds on that particular day.
The only downside to this story is, however, not knowing there would be fog the only camera I had on hand to photograph the scenery was, unfortunately, my phone.
My DSLR camera was set up for bird photography and it had my 600mm Tamron lens attached, and since I left the house with no other lenses that particular camera was almost useless on this trip since I was only able to find a couple of photographable birds on the auto loop.
If I had known there was going to be fog I would have brought another DSLR camera set up with a much smaller lens, one more suited for landscape photography, so I apologize some of the images for this particular post aren’t as sharp as they should be due to me not being as prepared as I needed to be.
But that’s a variable of nature photography that makes it both fun and frustrating, you just never know what to expect on any given day and if you’re not prepared, as I most certainly wasn’t on Monday, you just do the best you can with whatever camera you have at your disposal and hopefully learn from your mistakes for the next time nature gives you, and it most certainly will, something spectacular to photograph.
If you’re like me and enjoy birdwatching and nature photography, I offer you to both check the image gallery below from Monday’s excursion and head on over to our subscribe page and sign up for email notifications for future blog posts where we share our birding and photography experiences from both on and off of the famous Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.
