Rainbirds

Just be glad it’s not a scratch-and-sniff blog.

Darlene and I drove the flats of the lower Santa Cruz this rainy day looking for raptors, sparrows, and shorebirds. A quick turn around the Teton Road feedlot showed us the breathtaking scene excerpted above: tens of thousands of Yellow-headed Blackbirds paving the muddy ground, keeping the cattle company.

If I could be 100% certain that olfactory fatigue would set in, I’d love to visit this site at dusk to watch the flock lift off for roost.

North along the Santa Cruz, then, where the dull weather kept birding relatively slow. The most notable raptor we came across was a female Merlin at Western Sod, perched disconsolately on a center-pivot wondering where all the birds where.

We wondered that ourselves a bit until we came to the “round fields” north of Western Sod. There is some etymological justice in the fact that the very moment we spotted a flock of seventeen Mountain Plovers on the dry grass, the heavens opened and what had been showers became driving rain. Fortunately, three birds were right on the road, and we enjoyed spectacularly close views until fear of getting stuck on the greasy roads chased us away.