Maybe because it’s spring and birds are everywhere that more posting is to
be expected? But *eyiyi* there have been some fun postings on IBLE
recently! Thank you Scott, Brian, Jason, Cliff, Zeke, Kim, Tom, and..
Wendy, you are a very welcome addition to Idaho and to IBLE. =)

Missy and I have just returned home from our SE Idaho walkabout for year
birds. For the most part, roads were in good shape with few closures due to
washouts, lingering snow cover, and downed trees. But I gotta say, birding
riparian areas by ear was a challenge with the increased ambient noise due
to spring runoff (at historic levels across S Idaho?)

Some trip stats:

Counties we birded: Power, Bannock, Bingham, Jefferson, Teton, Caribou,
Bear Lake

eBirds lists we entered: 23

Species we found: 154

Idaho year birds: 23

We dipped on a few hopeful targets, including Cattle Egret, some woodpecker
and flycatcher species, Catbird, and Wilson’s Wobbler, but..

Toppermost were these:

Roaming around Sterling WMA is always fun: very little traffic,
interesting/unexpected patches of habitat, lots of birds, and nearly always
some unexpected species.

With shorebird migration winding down and passerine migration ramping up, we
were happy with 14 sp of shorebirds, including Black-bellied Plover at two
locations.

We also found American Bittern at two locations, and were thrilled with our
“close encounter” yesterday at Bear Lake, as in Close!

Grays Lake and Bear Lake are always amazing for their Sandhill Cranes and
Yellow-headed Blackbirds.

Two Black Terns this morning at Alexander Reservoir provided a sweet grand
finale!

There were many moments when/where we just wanted to sit back and chill.. to
soak up the varied avian orchestrations, of which there were many! =)

Good boid’n!

Larry Arnold, Boise

This morning we had the first Black-headed Grosbeaks for the year at our
feeder, one male and one female.

Cliff

—
Cliff and Lisa Weisse
Island Park, Idaho
cliffandlisa@octobersetters.com

Wendy,

Nice to see regular reports from the Challis area. Thanks for posting.
I wanted to make a brief comment on the subspecies of White-crowned
Sparrows you’re seeing right now. Oriantha is our regular breeding ssp
in Idaho. Gambell’s is the northern breeding subspecies that winters
here. There are others reporting late White-crowned Sparrows at
locations where they don’t breed and your observation is another example
of late departure for this species. Kind of odd considering the early
arrival of spring in most of the state. A nice example of why it can be
instructive to identify subspecies when possible.

Cliff

On 05/14/2017 11:45 PM, damnempid damnempid@yahoo.com [ible] wrote:
> Greetings, Birders!
>
> This winter storm dumped large numbers of sparrows in the Challis and
> Mackay area. At the Land of the Yankee Fork SP, /oriantha
> /White-crowned Sparrows mixed in with the usual Gambel’s. Chipping
> Sparrows numbers jumped from a few to 20 overnight. Today near Mackay
> and the reservoir, there was a flock of about 40 along the highway and
> more working through the brush around the reservoir. Vesper Sparrows
> were singing up a storm along the road up to the Mt. Borah trailhead
> before the storm and flushing from alongside the road yesterday in the
> snow. Today, they were hard to come by. Lark Sparrows are popping up
> with their pretty little faces as well.
> Large numbers of Yellow-rumped Warblers are in the Challis area with
> some flocks numbering up to 40. Yellow Warblers were singing and
> chasing each other around at the Bayhorse Recreation Area on Hwy 75.
> I’ve heard one or two singing in most riparian areas I’ve visited
> recently. A nice surprise was a Black-throated Gray that zoomed
> through at Bayhorse Rec Area on Friday.
> Flycatchers are coming in with Dusky and Hammond’s Flycatchers for
> Global Big Day on Saturday and a Gray today. It was also fun to watch
> a Western Wood-pewee foraging for bugs yesterday in the heavy snow
> falling at Mackay Reservoir.
> Since we have no way to fence a yard, we opted not to put feeders up
> by our RV at the park. As a result, we seem to be missing out on the
> grosbeaks and buntings. I’ve had one singing Black-headed Grosbeak and
> a few scattered Western Tanagers but no Lazuli Buntings or hummers yet.
>
> Good birding,
> Wendy McCrady
> Challis, ID
>

—
Cliff and Lisa Weisse
Island Park, Idaho
cliffandlisa@octobersetters.com