Here's my "kitchen" in Discovery; that's 3 scrambled eggs on the stove, with spinach, cheese and ham, and on the plate is a "Cutie", chocolate chip cookies, melon slices, and a banana. And of course OJ...After breakfast, I load up the truck and take off down the road to the Overton Wildlife Management Area, 17,000-plus acres for ponds, sagebrush and marshes that is a haven for wildlife. I spent many hours last winter birding the area while I was at Overton -- and I never tired of it for one minute. It's one of those places where you feel that you could see ANYthing, at any given time, since it's so vast. Alas, some things have changed there since I last visited; for instance --
A visitor used to be able to drive the dirt roads winding their way through the wildlife area; now you can't, or at least between these dates. It may have something to do with the state of those dirt roads; a massive monsoon/remnants of a hurricane ripped through the Moapa Valley ( click on this to read the news report ) late September, causing part of Interstate 15 at the town of Moapa to be washed away, and evidence of the flood waters is still noticeable; at the wildlife area dirt roads were washed out; the road I'm standing on to take this photo, once in between two large ponds, is now bisected by a small river channel --
And there are piles of mud everywhere, and also exposed drainage pipes which were originally buried under feet of dirt. It's a real mess...So, I assume the wildlife area managers don't want to take responsibility for visitor's safety -- and don't want to spend most of their time rescuing stuck vehicles. So for now you can only park your car outside, and hike in...Which is fine with me. But the road down to Pintail Pond, down in the southern end of the area, seems to still be open to cars, so I drive down that; here's Pintail Pond, looking southwest towards the Valley of Fire --
And the first birds I see here are -- Mr and Mrs Wood Duck. First time I've seen Wood Ducks at Overton WMA...I get a few shots of them on the pond, then they are aware of my presence, so fly off, but they wheel around to come back to the pond, and I get photos of them in the air with my 500 f/4 --
Fantastic. If that is all I got for the entire day, I'd still be one happy camper. But there's more...A male Bufflehead and his female "harem" are in the pond, and also fly away, but I get them fleeing across the pond --
I shortly come upon the "bisected" road mentioned above, so I turn around, head out, and go to the northern end of the wildlife area. I enter the gate, and see that the formerly large pond has been overtaken by reeds and lush growth --
I walk along the mostly torn-up roads, some blocked by toppled palm trees, but growth is much lusher and green than I'd seen it in the past --
I don't really encounter that many birds -- I do a bird count and submit it to Ebird, thru the BirdsEye app for my iPad Mini, and only come up with 33 species in 3 & 1/2 hours -- but what I see are "quality", such as this "common" Black Phoebe, but radiating "personality-plus" --
Even the butterflies get into the act; here's a Buckeye, taken once again with the 500 f/4. It was so close to me on the ground that I had to back up; the 500's minimum focusing distance is 15 feet --
On heading back to the truck I come across 2 NDOW (Nevada Dept of Wildlife) employees who are taking fish out of a net. In talking with them, I discover that they were getting rid of carp, an invasive species that had somehow gotten into the pond and were "pushing out" the native species, the Razorback Sucker fish. One of them quipped "Want to switch -- you net fish and I take photos?" I don't want my body stinking of carp... :o) It's now 10:40, and I have to conserve my energy and get over this cold if I'm to head out to Lytle Ranch Preserve in SW Utah tomorrow, so I call it an early day, go to Lin's Market in Overton to get some cold medication, and sugar for the hummingbird feeder I put up later -- and spend the rest of the day at the trailer, relaxing and processing the photos I took during the morning. Before I take leave of this post, here's one last sign, at the Overton WMA's entrance --
Just an observation, no bias intended, but....HARVESTING? I'd heard the term used before from an NDOW person when he was talking about "harvesting" ducks. "Harvesting"sounds more like what you do to wheat when you cut it down, guess it might take some of the "sting" away from killing...With that said, it's off to do some reading, then bed rest for what's to come tomorrow...
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