Bear River Wildlife Refuge is located in Northern Utah near Brigham City, Utah. It is one of the major habitats for migrating birds in the mountain west. During fall and spring hundreds of thousands of birds use it as a pit stop. In the dead of winter however, it is a baren wasteland of ice and frozen mud. This frigid desert is where I spent last Saturday. Hundreds of horned Larks flock together and rummage through the frozen ground looking for seeds and whatever else they can get their beaks on. It turns out that a few species of rare longspurs hang out with these flocks. Several longspur's had been reported over the last few days and so 4 of us Utah County birders took the trip up to find them. After 4 hours of looking at hunderds of sparrow size horned larks through binoculars and spotting scopes and not finding a single longspur, we decided to call it quits and head back home. As we started to head back to the freeway, we got a phone call from the Stackhouse's (a couple that was out looking for them too) saying they had found at least 3 in the flock they were looking at about a quarter of a mile back! We quickly turned around, pulled out the scopes, and got a great look for at least 10 minutes. It was a fun adventure. The brand new nature center is right off the freeway and I would recomend it as a great pit-stop for anyone traveling north.
