Bear River and Refuge

A few weeks ago we drove up to the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge near Brigham City. I've got to say, our kids were amazing the entire day. It took us an extra hour to get up there in traffic, and then we spent four hours in the car on the tour. Not since our drive to Portland in April have we blown through so many videos in the van.

During the summer you can go on guided tours of the refuge with professional naturalists and birders who volunteer their time. In our case, they let us have a walkie-talkie and follow the tour van so we could stay in our own vehicle. We added 14 new birds to our list, including some cool ones like the black-capped night heron, snowy egret and clark's grebe. We're going back next month when migration is in full-swing and we have a better chance of adding ducks.

We also learned more about field guides and the Sibley Guide to Birds has got to be the coolest birding book out there. There's pictures of each bird in juvenile and adult stages, with months to expect to see which plumage, both male and female, and in flight. A memoir I saw while looking through the gift shop in their beautiful visitors center, is Refuge, by Terry Tempest Williams. This book has hit me at a time when birding and cancer came to my life. Terry is an avid birder and feels very connected to Great Salt Lake, and in the 1980's when it flooded into fresh water basins and downtown Salt Lake (interesting stories there), her mother was also being flooded with cancer, which took her life. My own mother has been batting thyroid cancer for almost two years, and although it's supposed to be the "best kind of cancer to have," it's taken its toll and scared us all. I have really enjoyed reading Tempest Williams' poetic style and her conversion from fighting for her mother's life to letting her mother's life be her own. It was a beautiful and educational review of pain and birds and the area I find myself living in now.