As the weather warmed a bit last week I started poking around the New Plymouth area to see if any migrants were starting to show up. I found some snow geese in the lower Payette River region, along with some red-winged blackbirds starting to stake out territories and saw my fist robins. At the New Plymouth sewage pond i saw a good sized flock of  northern shovelers and a few ruddy ducks. So today I decided to hit the Boise Wildlife area to see if anything was showing up there. I was really surprised to find almost all of the usual water areas dried up. I don’t recall any discussion of this on IBLE; if there was I certainly missed it. I’m going to miss watching those large flocks of geese coming in this Spring. I did see a few FOY birds but I thought that I should let everyone that the area is undergoing a large scale construction project until at least May. The project is funded from Federal monies (P&R ?) with Ducks Unlimited doing the design work. I’m sure it will really upgrade the habitat there; just sad about missing on one of my favorite early Spring favorite places.

Fred Crase
New Plymouth

We had a family of BANOs(9!) in a packing shed until vineyard production stepped up and they disappeared.  That was 18 years ago or so.  Haven’t seen any on this east end of Emmett since.  Have hung a barn owl box in several locations, but no luck.

This weekend I discovered a pair on a sandstone wall, maybe 30 ft above HWY 52 (Black Canyon Reservoir) on a hairbend turn, a very dangerous corner.  Gad, this makes me nervous.

Liz Medes
Emmett

I saw 2 large flocks of approximately 70+ flying high close to the house in Emmett around 12:30 today. They possibly could be some of the ones you saw earlier Janet. I love their calls!

At least 50 Sandhill Cranes grazing and groups seen flying in area today at noon—Highway #52 NW of Emmett—town called Little Rock. Hotspot 43 55 06.0 -116 41 36.9
1000’s of Snow Geese still at Roswell Pond 43 44 56.5 -117 00 16.8