Show f e By IRIS Not more than a mile or two from where Interstate 15 zips along below the Wasatch Range there is a world not known by most people who ride thus close beside it Although a sign along the highway points to the Farmington Bay Bird Refuge not many people turn west to go there THE BIRD REFUGE ISN'T open to the general public until July 1 but when I wanted to take my Guide Scouts there recently I found an educational field trip could get special permission to enter Therefore on a bright abright spring morning I rounded up seven head of boy and we set out I We stopped at the station house beside the gate the gate was unlocked for us and we went along a narrow strip of smoothed land which is all the road necessary for such a place We had our and information given to us bythe by bythe bythe the superintendent of Farmington Bay Reuben Dietz He told us for example that there are two species of seagulls which inhabit the shores and islands of the Great Salt Lake Both species winter on the Pacific Coast but in the early spring the California gull and the Franklin gull the gull the smaller of the two with a black head fly back to Utah where they nest along the shores of bf the lake in vast numbers They float serenely on the heavy water fly low I over lapping waves in search of food and soar high overhead overhead over over- head where their cry becomes the voice of the lake I IT WAS GARY WHO hollered Hey PELican I I thought he was joking since I didn't realize pelicans are i among the birds who dwell on the shores of the Great Salt SaltI I Lake but there they were wading sedately through the I deeply blue shallow water covered with creamy feathers I and full of slow ponderous dignity Their bills are long and andI I faintly pink and although we saw many pelicans we didn't get bored with them I We parked our car at a wide spot In the road where waves break whispering on either side and walked to the I waters water's edge to study tiny brown shri shrimp mp While we studied the shrimp sandpipers s studied us Stephen whispered i Look Look Theres There's some goofy bIrds on stilts SUPERINTENDENT DIETZ had told us also that last winter there were muskrat harvested within the confines of Farmington Bay Although the boys and I fascinated by this information which startled me as much muchas as it did them looked with diligence in an attempt to spot a muskrat we suddenly remembered we didn't know what one looked like so we gave up A huge thing Kevin spotted in the canal turned out to be a carp We saw Canada geese or as Britney said Them big gooses and any number of ducks We leafed through our bird book with great speed and we were able to identify many of them for sure including a pintail and a few I Mallard or Mallards from the seven or more species I Superintendent Dietz had told us are common on those shores Just as we were beginning to feel proud of our information we saw one with a beautiful bright I blue head floating through the reeds There was no picture of it In our book and we decided to call it the Bright Blue- Blue Headed Duck a piece of cleverness which sent all seven I boys into fits of giggles WE ATE LUNCH BENEATH A cool spring sun feeling remote from civilization although clear to the east were the houses of county towns But the boys and I turned our backs on them and enjoyed the wild beauty of the lake and the cries of the birds and we returned to the towns with reluctance me and my boys |