Recently I traveled Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area in Utah to photograph bald eagles. The refuge poisons and collects carp for the eagles to eat, and in most years the photography is spectacular. This year, not so much. Too much open water meant that the eagles had lots of food sources and were widely dispersed. There were, however, many Ring-billed Gulls (Larus delawarensis) and Herring Gulls (Larus argentatus), so I photographed them instead.
There are basically two things that you can “say” about gulls. Either that they’re graceful (and occasionally comical) white birds, or that they are carrion and garbage eaters:
Finally, I did see a number of raptors, including Harriers and one of my favorites, American Kestrels (Falco sparverius). Unfortunately, this Kestrel seemed to prefer this post to a more attractive perch.
