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Brigham City, Utah

March 29-30, 2015

The next day we headed north through the busy freeway traffic of Salt Lake City and in the early afternoon arrived at Willard State Park on Great Salt Lake in Brigham City.  The campsite is really just a big parking lot by a marina, and probably wouldn’t be that pleasant in the summer, but there’s only 6 rigs camped here, so it’s pretty pleasant.  We have 3 picnic tables at our site, a big tree and a view of the beautiful Wasatch Mountains. (And electricity and our own sewage dump for $20.)

Camping in the parking lot, Willard Bay State Park

Ostensibly we stopped here for the nearby Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, but there also happens to be two restaurants recommended in our Roadfood guide, so that doesn’t hurt either.

Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge

The next morning we hit the refuge pretty early and had most of the 12 mile road tour to ourselves.  The visitor centre noted 20,000 swans here at the beginning of March, but now most of the great masses of migrating birds are gone.  There were reports of white-faced ibis sightings, but not by us.  Still, we saw lots of American Avocets,

and black-necked stilts, white pelicans, sandhill cranes, and cinnamon teals, along with numerous other ducks.  The bird of the day was Clark’s grebe, a lifer for us.  These used to be a variation of the western grebe, but now counts as a separate species, so we’ll take it.

For lunch we went to Idle’s Isle, an old-fashioned coffee shop, as we used to call them in my youth, complete with marble lunch counter and great booths.  The menu was classic diner, and the fresh-baked rolls tasted exactly like Leo’s mom’s, and the ham and bean soup tasted just like my mom’s.  And there was great idleberry (blue and raspberry) and coconut cream pie with a giant dollop of whipped cream for dessert.  Two Thumbs Up!  It’s just as well the Maddox Drive In was closed on Mondays because as it was we forwent supper tonight.

Brigham City is an appealing small town with a vital and lively downtown (a rarity in small-town USA) and two large Mormon churches across the street from each other (I suppose they didn’t name it after Brigham Young for nothing). And they have a banner over Main Street stating “home of the best wildlife refuge in the world.” So you can tell they have their priorities right:  1) birds, 2) God, and 3) pie, although Leo and I might slightly change the order.

Our campsite is a bit of a disappointment, birdwise.  It looks like great bird habitat, with flowering trees, the lakeshore with exposed sandy beach, fields, and riparian area along a ditch.  But the first day all we saw were house sparrows, robins and red-winged blackbirds.

In the early evening we walked along the dyke and we did manage to see some killdeer, a pelican, a great blue heron, 40 sandhill cranes, and some Western/Clark’s grebes.  So perhaps we are just spoiled after the bounty of Bear River Refuge.  Still, where are the warblers and the sparrows?

Walking the dyke, South Marina, Willard state Park