Serendipity

My first guided tour of Farmington Bay when I was training to be a volunteer was lead by Don Paul, what a wonderful opportunity that I will never forget. During his lecture prior to the tour he made the comment that birding is serendipitous. You go out with a target bird and often don't see your target bird but something else and sometimes even better than what you were hoping to see. Well that happened to me today, my brother in law Frank Clawson and I had only a few minutes to try to see some birds today before heading off to other family activities so we went over to Kaysville Pond. My hope was to get some better photos of Ring-necked ducks and perhaps Hooded Mergansers. While we had fun and saw a lot of ducks there wasn't anything out of the ordinary, other than it seems like every time I go there, there seems to be more Great-tailed Grackles that have moved in. After spending about 15 or 20 minutes looking over the ducks and gulls we headed east away from the ponds. About 2 blocks east of the ponds I spotted a small hawk on top of a power pole eating. As we approached it I realized it was a Merlin, so I pulled the car over and got out and shot some nice pictures. Tickled about our find we headed to his house in Fruit Heights to drop him off. After dropping him off I headed south on Highway 89 and had to stop for the red light at Nicholls Road. I looked down the street and saw a lot of birds flying around the area so I pulled down Nicholls Road and parked in front of the park. there in some Mountain White Ash full of berries were about a dozen Cedar Waxwings. I was able to get some nice pictures of these birds as well. Birding is indeed serendipitous. See more pictures on our web albums by clicking on the link on this page.