[TopOfUtah] Cache Valley-more spring arrivals

[Craig Fosdick]

Keith Archibald, Ryan O' Donnell and took a spin around Cache Valley this
morning to see if we could find some new spring arrivals.  Highlights
include HORNED GREBE, TUNDRA SWAN, EURASIAN WIGEON, BARN SWALLOW, AMERICAN
AVOCET, BLACK-NECKED STILT, GREATER and LESSER YELLOWLEGS, WILLET,
LONG-BILLED CURLEW, a distant and cooperative PEEP, SNOWY EGRET, WHITE-FACED
IBIS, AMERICAN PIPIT, BOHEMIAN WAXWING, and finally a fairly cooperative
LINCOLN'S SPARROW.

Before we started our trip, we had a pure? flock of 30-35 BOHEMIAN WAXWINGS
fly over downtown Logan.

The EURASIAN WIGEON which continues to hang out with American Wigeons on the
Bear River (3000 N) in Benson.  The HORNED GREBE continues at Benson Marina;
also at Benson Marina this morning was a single BARN SWALLOW, the only
swallow we saw all day.  Just west of Benson Marina were 14 LONG-BILLED
CURLEW.  Four TUNDRA SWAN were hanging around today, 3 at the Bear River
Oxbow, and 1 near the Amalga Barrens.  Also at the Bear River Oxbow on Sam
Fellow Rd were 6+ GREATER YELLOWLEGS, a WILLET, 2 LESSER YELLOWLEGS, two
SNOWY EGRETS and a distant and uncooperative PEEP that ran behind some cover
before we could get good looks.

Two WHITE-FACED IBIS were near Amalga, along with 6+ WILLET, and 20 or so
AMERICAN PIPITS. We saw a handful of FRANKLIN'S GULLS; most of the
RING-BILLED GULLS have apparently moved out, with CALIFORNIA GULLS
dominating.  There are probably well over 1,000 CALIFORNIA GULLS in Cache
Valley right now; we saw several hundred today, and this evening I saw a
flock of 600 near Trenton.

AMERICAN AVOCETS and BLACK-NECKED STILTS continue to slowly build in numbers
throughout the valley, and we saw NORTHERN HARRIERS carrying nesting
material on two different occasions.

At the Bear River bridge at 4000 W in Benson, Ryan dug up a LINCOLN'S
SPARROW for us; it was fairly cooperative, and allowed decent looks.

This evening, I took a quick spin over to Cutler Res at Cache Jct to try and
relocate the loon spp. I had found there on April 9.  I could not relocate
it, but I did see 8 COMMON LOONS, one SNOW GOOSE, three female HOODED
MERGANSERS, a BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT-HERON, and another SNOWY EGRET.

Good birding,

Craig Fosdick
Logan, Utah.
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