The three young Cooper’s Hawk are calling for food. Bkack-capoed Chickadees
are chittering frequently and visiting my tube feeder. Meanwhile, one of
the he Cooper’s Hawks is stealthily moving limb to limb and tree to tree in
my yard. I love Chickadees and don’t want the hawk to win this one.
Diann Stone Boise Depot Bench
I just had an Ash-throated Flycatcher at Foote Park. See details: eBird Checklist – Foote Park, Ada County, Idaho, US – Tue Jul 03, 2018 – 20 species
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eBird Checklist – Foote Park, Ada County, Idaho, US – Tue Jul 03, 2018 –…
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Jason Talbot
Every year as I watch hummingbirds visit my feeders I wonder âHow many different birds are coming by each day?â Of course, at this time of year this means âI wonder how many Black-chinned Hummingbirds are coming by my feeders each day?â as that is the only species I see during the summer. This year I finally decided to move beyond wondering and see what I could do to actually figure it out.
A little searching on the internet found a few estimation methods. The best way is to do local banding to create an identifiable sample of the birds, but that approach is not available for me. The easiest estimation method is to count the maximum number of birds you see at one time and multiply by 6. This was created by someone who had done local banding and discovered this was a reasonable and simple estimate. In my case I often see 4 birds at once, especially in the sunset feeding frenzy. I once saw 5 but 4 seems like a consistent maximum. So, this would get me to somewhere around 24 different hummingbirds coming by during the day. The other estimation method is based on several peopleâs studies that hummingbirds drink between 0.25 and 0.50 ounces of sugar water a day (based on the typical 1 part sugar to 4 parts water mix). During the last week, birds have been drinking around 12 to 15 ounces of sugar water a day. This approach results in a range of between 24 and 60 different birds coming by each day â and the numbers will be even higher if they are also visiting other feeders in the neighborhood. And there are many neighbors also with feeders.
Where does that leave me? It seems like based on these estimates that I have at least 24 different Black-chinned hummingbirds visiting each day and it would be plausible for this number to be 30 or even a little more. I find that pretty amazing that this many of them are around. A number which will jump dramatically in a few weeks as the young of the year fledge and join their parents in feeder visits.
Scott Tuthill/Boise
This is the first day I’ve seen the Cooper’s Hawk young out with their
parents. The young are calling for food, and the parents deliver. How lucky
to listen and watch from my backyard.
Diann Stone Boise Depot Bench
Hi birders,
Yesterday Amy Bechtel and I walked the whole trail at Gold Fork (off Hwy 21 near mile marker 59). There is still extensive fire damage following from the 2016 fires in this area, which has created a lot of relatively open areas along the trail. As a result, there is a huge proliferation of wild flowers growing there of many colours and varieties, including geranium species, penstemon, larkspur, mallow, and Indian paintbrush, to name a few. For birds, it was a good day for woodpecker species, with the burnt areas good for Three-toed and Black-backed woodpeckers. We also had excellent views of a pair of MacGillivray’s Warblers which we watched for several minutes, calling from the low growth along one of the creeks there.
Good birding!John Shortis