Northern Mockingbirds in Box Elder County

["Betsy Beneke" <bbeneke at brigham dot net>]

This morning while scouting the Snowville Breeding Bird Survey Route, I
found a pair of northern mockingbirds.  I watched them for about 10 minutes,
as they foraged and flew from shrub to shrub in a fairly small area.  At one
point, a loggerhead shrike flew into the same tree/shrub and they all sat
and looked at each other for about 30 seconds.  The mockingbirds didn't seem
intimidated and the shrike flew off.

This area in my Utah DeLorme Atlas & Gazetteer, page 59, is called Salt
Hills Flat, although the specific site is no doubt on the west side of this
area, as it's before the terrain flattens out.  The birds, according to my
odometer were 17.7 miles SE of the Locomotive Springs Wildlife Managment
Area main intersection (top middle of the DeLorme page 59) and approximately
3 miles NW of the large, brown, BLM sign that says "Salt Wells" with
accompanying text.  There were hills and a ridge along the north side of
this area and the birds were between the main gravel road and what I assume
is the old railroad bed.

I also watched a young golden eagle capture, kill and start to eat a large
snake (could it have been a rattler?)  before it noticed me watching, and
flew off.  I'm not familiar with Utah snakes, so will have to look it up and
see if I can ID it from markings.

In the flats of Salt Wells there were about 20 snowy plovers running
around - pretty cool also.  Was a fun morning!

Betsy Beneke
Perry UT
Box Elder County

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