spot – Mia McPherson's On The Wing Photography

Big & Beautiful: Tundra Swans of Bear River MBR

By Mia McPherson|2024-02-05T03:22:54-06:00March 3rd, 2023|Categories: Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, Birds, Box Elder County, Tundra Swans, Utah|Tags: adult, alert, bath, bathing, bill, close, Cygnus columbianus, droplets, flight, flock, flying, goofy, ice shelf, immature, marsh, nips, Promontory Mountains, relaxing, resting, sky, snow, spot, swans, Tundra Swan, walking, water, waterfowl, wetlands, winter, young|

Yesterday morning I spent time with a flock of big, beautiful Tundra Swans at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. I loved every moment that I had with the swans.

My Growing Concerns Over This Years Crop Of Douglas Fir Seeds Because Of Our Drought

By Mia McPherson|2021-10-24T06:45:41-05:00October 24th, 2021|Categories: Birds, Mountain Chickadees, Red-breasted Nuthatches, Tooele County, Utah, West Desert|Tags: adult, alpine, autumn, branch, checking out, chickadee, chickadees, cone, cones, Douglas fir, eating, fall, feeding, fir, fir tree, fir trees, firs, foraging, mature, Mountain Chickadee, mountains, needles, nuthatch, nuthatches, Poecile gambeli, Pseudotsuga menziesii, Pseudotsuga menziesii var. glauca, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Rocky Mountain Douglas Fir, scales, seed, seeds, Sitta canadensis, sky island mountains, spot, sunlight, trees|

My trip out into the sky island mountains of the West Desert last week caused my concerns about this years crop of Douglas Fir seeds to grow.

American Bitterns Can Be Hard To Spot

By Mia McPherson|2023-12-18T10:38:54-06:00October 14th, 2019|Categories: American Bitterns, Birds, Box Elder County, Utah|Tags: American Bittern, autumn, bittern, bitterns, Botaurus lentiginosus, fall, habitat, marsh, pointing out, spot, spotting, vision, wading birds, wetlands|

American Bitterns can be very hard to spot at times since they blend into their habitat so well because of their cryptic plumage patterns and because they are so skulky.