Refuge visit

A warm (70) day in SLC and Tooele valleys so we visited the refuge for a bit. The refuge closes to dogs as of 3/1 and it also closes it's main dike road to vehicle traffic at that time. So instead of a long walk today, I hung out and was well rewarded.

The Killdeer were the cutest little guys just barely looking over the salt grass.

Then the Tundra Swans sitting in a pond just inside the entry gate - normally they are miles away making a lot of noise. Looked like several juveniles in the group.

The Sandhill Cranes - talk about luck! I pulled over just past the rangers HQ to let another vehicle go by and sat there for a minute just looking around, a bit dreamily! I suddenly realized that there were cranes walking slowly just about 60 feet away! They were on the passenger side of the truck so had to do a bit of squirming and jiggling to get into position to take a few photos.

Finally the GBH's at the rookery - you can make up a dozen stories for each activity that they do!