Let me start off by stating I am a huge fan of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and have been for decades, ever since high school, in fact.
So much so, I started this blog to help with refuge awareness and nature education, at least in a small and simple measure I suppose.
My senior thesis in college was actually geared around the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.
I’ve also taught numerous free outdoor photography classes over the years for the refuge on their annual Swan Day event.
And much of my time outside of blogging and photographing the refuge is spent posting and promoting on a few social media platforms the wonderous creatures found on the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and the adjoining Great Salt Lake ecosystem.
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Needless to say, I am a big refuge supporter as it were.
I am also someone who doesn’t like to discourage anyone from visiting the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge auto tour route no matter how slow the bird watching is.
But today, in all fairness, was just one of those days on the refuge I wished I had stayed home because, well, except for 2 American avocets on the auto loop and a lone rough-legged hawk on the way home, the bird watching was pretty much nonexistent, to say the least.
But it was more than just the lack of birds that frustrated me today but I will just mention the frustrations experienced on the refuge.
The day started off with me hitting it perfectly (sarcasm intended) on Forest Street as the cattle were being moved from one refuge location to another.
Truthfully, I felt like a fish swimming against the current as I slowly weaved my way through the seemingly endless herd of oncoming bovines heading the opposite direction.
Now as far as cows go, I have nothing against the cattle sent to graze on the refuge at all, really I don’t.
They are actually one weapon of several in the refuge’s arsenal for the ongoing fight against the invasive phragmites plant.
Cattle grazing is part of the effort to control and hopefully start to reduce this most unwanted and unruly plant that is literally choking the life out of the refuge’s native vegetation that attracts the large assortment of birds to its lands.
I get that. Cows are there to help the birds, plain and simple.
But, honestly, today of all days I was just hoping to have some peace and solitude in a pure and natural setting, the way nature was truly meant to be.
Sorry cows but today you were “harshing my mellow”.
My desire was to sit and watch a few birds, ponder a few big decisions coming up in my life, and just enjoy whatever else nature had to offer me on this cold November day.
Not long after I started driving the refuge auto tour route, my birding interests were quickly dampened as the rough condition of the gravel road grabbed my attention.
Potholes were becoming more and more common and seemed to get larger and larger the further I went.
In all fairness, I will say most of the time the auto loop is smooth as butter and easily driven in a car.
But winter weather coupled with heavy traffic is pretty rough on Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge auto loop and some years the gravel road takes a pretty good beating before refuge personnel can grade the road back to being smooth again in the following spring.
It looks like this might be one of those years as we have just breached the early part of November and, I will be honest with you all here, parts of the auto tour route were much too rough for a passenger car to casually drive on.
Truthfully, if I had known beforehand how rough parts of the auto loop were I wouldn’t have driven it today, not in my car at least.
By the time I had worked my way around to the most westerly portion of the unit, the potholes were starting to diminish but, however, I was greeted by, yep, you guessed it, more cows.
Well, at this point of my drive I had seen more cows than birds on today’s birding trip and I was getting a little bit discouraged, to say the least.
When my life is in a funk of sorts, birds are usually the remedy for what ails me.
And even though I don’t mind cows at all, many of my neighbors have them in fact, they just weren’t doing it for me today.
I wanted birds, lots and lots of birds.
It wasn’t until after another long stretch of merciless potholes and no birds that something caught my eye, causing me to quickly pull over and take out my phone for a few images before the wind literally washed the scene from before me a few minutes later.
What lay in front of me was a most beautiful reflection scene, one so perfectly canvased on a somewhat calm stretch of water.
The snow-capped mountains in the background, gently hugged by the soft, almost cotton-like clouds against a dark blue sky made me forget, at least for the time being that is, my frustrations and discouragements of the day, both on and off the refuge.
Scenes like this, eye-catching reflections over calm water, are almost as enjoyable for me as a great blue heron stalking the shallows or an American white pelican gliding effortlessly just inches above the water’s surface.
Needless to say, this magnificent setting was the highlight of my day, not just the refuge part of it but the whole day from top to bottom.
The incredible scene lasted only a few minutes or more before a gentle but cold breeze picked up and washed the watery slate clean once again.
This is why I never discourage anyone from visiting the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge auto loop, you just never know if or when something magical like this will happen.
Sometimes those magical moments are given by a bird or a butterfly, for example, and other times it is just a magnificent scene that somehow unfolds itself at the right place and at the right time like it did today.
Either way, even when it seems like a most discouraging and pointless day, I almost always find something uniquely special about the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge on my trips around the auto loop if I keep my eyes open and wait for what nature has up its sleeve.
As one last note here, I actually went back out to the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge again tonight to try and capture what was promising to be a good chance for a spectacular sunset.
It wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for but sitting there with my camera watching the tundra swans fly over my head was more then enough of a reminder why I love this place so much.
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