Today, we went to a bird refuge. It's along one of the northern fingers of the Great Salt Lake. The purpose of the trip was to see birds, (DUH), but mostly to try out one of my Christmas presents. Drake gave me birding binoculars for Christmas. He knows how much I like to look at birds, and he decided that we could use these on our travels. To be truthful, I was sort of caught off guard by the gift. I didn't ask for it, and I privately thought it was one of Drake's out of the box gifts which he like to buy. Those unthought of, and sometimes even downright bizarre gifts have a way of being wonderful. The binoculars were no exception.
The drive to the refuge was gorgeous. Northern Utah is very scenic with large mountain peaks, some of which are still wearing snow, flanked by rolling hills covered with juniper (what we call 'cedar' in Texas) as well as deciduous trees. While driving, you wind up climbing for miles and coasting downhill for miles.
I knew the birding trip would be fun, but I didn't expect spectacular. The binoculars showed me birds (which were EVERYWHERE) in a way I'd never seen them before. This pair of binoculars are designed to be used by people without as well as those WITH glasses. A rarity, let me tell you. I've struggled for years to use binoculars, and they just never really 'worked' because of my glasses and my crappy eyesight. These are delightful.
As we took the 'auto tour' - driving 12 miles on top of dikes criss/crossing the fingerlets of water, we saw an amazing cross section of birds - songbirds, waterbirds, ducks, geese, grebes, gulls, pelicans, and more, more, more.
As always, pictures are worth gold on a tour like this one. Enjoy.
https://picasaweb.google.com/jalyss1/2012UtahBearRiverMigratoryBirdRefuge#
No comments:
Post a Comment