Managing Director Rick Wright writes from Utah:

WINGS is well represented this week at the annual convention of the American Birding Association, being held this year at Sunbird, Utah. Gavin Bieber, Steve Howell, Rich Hoyer, Paul Lehman, and Chris Wood are all busy leading field trips, while Lauren Bosch is welcoming long-time WINGS participants and dispensing information to new ones.

And I’ve been helping out around the edges, birding and talking and having a great time seeing old WINGS friends and meeting new ones, in the field and at the hotel feeders. I tagged along with Chris Wood and Jessie Barry on Tuesday’s field trip to Bear River, where the birding was just as good as it had been on my first (and last!) visit there almost 30 years ago.

Photo: Rick Wright.

American Avocets were pleasingly abundant, and we wished only that we’d had more time to check through the many Plegadis ibis (here a nice White-faced Ibis) for the Glossy Ibis that we “just knew” had to be lurking out there. The best bird, though, of the trip and possibly of the entire convention, was a Black Brant out in the marshes, rare at any season in the interior west and pretty much unheard of in the summer.

Today I joined Gavin Bieber’s bus to Bridal Veil Falls and Sundance, beautiful places both, and both with fine birds. Black Swifts showed well at Bridal Veil, and a surprise singleton flew over Sundance in the afternoon, too–my first away from a “stake-out.” Vivian Park was good for American Dipper, with a noisy family of kids tucked away under one of the footbridges; the parents brought wet wigglers in every couple of minutes, unleashing even more squawking and shrieking from their hungry nestlings.

Photo: Rick Wright.

Now if only I could figure out a way to stow away on Gavin and Paul Lehman’s tour of Utah and Nevada for Himalayan Snowcock next week!