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I have often spoken about the glamorous life of the wildlife photographer. How it rains money and the wild winds blow in entire clutches of Nature loving groupies and this trip was no exception, except for the raining money and wild wind groupies part. But adventure and the thrill of the new is what counts, so in that regard this trip was a resounding success.

As I was trudging along the back roads of Utah on my way West, dragging my gear behind me in my own customized King Sooper bag, the one with ‘Expensive Photographic Gear Inside, Do Not Steal’, on it, I saw a sign proclaiming “Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge this Way” on it, with the ‘This Way’ part pointing off into the heat shimmer and the mirage like mountains lying low against the horizon, probably three days away.

Being an experienced wildlife, bird refuge, photo taking guy I wasn’t impressed. It was 108′ and the little sun hat I had bought for the trip had long been lost to the caprious wind and my sunglasses were all fogged up and my custom King Soopers bag kept getting caught in the rocks along the road and the bottom was tearing out and I had used the last of my duck tape to repair it back in Wyoming, and I thought “Do I really want to walk for three days to see a dumb little bird refuge that probably only had two sparrows, a crow and a molting old penguin in a cage?” The truth was I did.

I did because I believe in the Surprise-A-Thon. The Surprise-A-Thon is an almost mythical event known only to grizzled old photogs and is more of a gut instinct phenomenon where you believe that you will stumble into that Holy Grail of places where everywhere you look is a new, never seen before image and you are the only photographer there. Your camera is working perfectly, you have fresh batteries and empty memory cards and you have been reborn. It is that glorious experience you always dream about and it is yours alone.

And that’s what happened at the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. Everywhere I turned there was a new specie of bird saying “Take my picture, Be Famous! Look, I’ll Do This Amazing Thing Just For You!” and I did, I took its picture. His and hundreds more just like him, hopping around, flying, standing, yelling, watching their little bird kids, making threatening gestures to their neighbors if they got too close, doing everything that birds do when they think there is no one watching them.

I had hit the Surprise-A-Thon mother lode. As I slowly made my way around the 12 mile road with its lakes, and river and water moving ditches I saw one amazing bird activity after another. There was every specie from Albatross, actually there weren’t any Albatrosses there but I’m sure there was another species that started with the letter A, to Ze’ flying Seagulls. It covered the entire alphabetical gamut of bird-dom.

The thing that stands out in my mind the most however was this shot of a Black-Crowned Night Heron flying off with an unfortunate garter snake it had just caught. I had just finished backtracking a quarter of a mile picking up various lenses and filters and empty water bottles after the bottom of my King Sooper bag ripped out again for like, the One Millionth Time and spotting a little pond where the water was only marginally green I was going to slake my thirst. My plan was to stagger forward and plunge my head down beneath its surface and suck up at least a half of its volume being careful of course not to get too much mud in with it because pond mud isn’t too clean, but just as I was about to take the plunge, the Black-Crowned Night Heron in the shot above took flight. And it had a snake in its bill. Nirvana! That’s what lucky wildlife photographers yell when something very, very cool happens. I yelled it a bunch. I even forgot about my thirst. Yippee!, Wowser!, Oh Man!, those are other things lucky Photographers say when… well, you get the picture. It was a good day to be a wildlife shooter. Shortly after that I think I lost consciousness.

Fortunately some kind nameless stranger stopped and poured a bottle of water over my head as I lay there in the gravel at the side of the road still clutching my King Sooper bag to my chest and awakening, being somewhat refreshed, I was able to find the strength to get up and continue my journey. If it weren’t for the images on my memory card I would almost believe the whole thing had been a dream. But it wasn’t, the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge really exists right outside of Brigham City, the cardboard core from my roll of Duck tape still sits in the trash receptacle where I placed it and hopefully the Black-Crowned Night Heron is still there catching snakes. And I was alive to shoot again another day, hoping against hope to experience the Surprise-A-Thon one more time.