Young Birds

A couple weeks back I posted about the cow and calf moose that Tammy and I discovered at Bear Lake NWR. But that calf moose was not the only young critter on the loose. There were also plenty of first year birds getting ready for their first winter.

Here are a couple photos of young birds. The first photo is of a first year White-faced Ibis. The second photo is of a mother and first year Western Grebe.

[edit: added link for White-faced Ibis]

Moose Running Scared

As I mentioned in my Sunday Drive post, Tammy and I stopped at Bear Lake NWR to do some bird watching. We got there around lunch time and had the place to ourselves. There were plenty of birds to be seen, but eventually the time of day started to press on us since we had about three more hours of driving to go. So we began to drive out of the reserve.

The roads in the preserve are all gravel, with plenty of washboards, so we really could not go that fast. As we drove towards the exit, however, Tammy and I were both startled by something rather large and furry running out of the weeds ahead and to the right of the car. Our drive out of the park had spooked a momma moose and her calf, and they were even more startled by our presence than we were of theirs. I managed to get the car stopped in time to snap a few photos through the passenger side window, which Tammy had graciously rolled down.