Re: Dry lake area

I agree with Mark’s id. I had two small flocks at Blue Lake Sewage Lagoons yesterday. There were both young as well as adult birds. All heavily mottled, some traces of rufous. Tried to make the shorter-billed birds into Baird’s… or something else…just in case. But this was a no-go idea quickly dropped. Water level was down and away so could not get any kind of a decent id-able photo.
FYI, these ponds are off Eisenman St. near the Boise Outlets. For access, do not use the marked/paved pvt. road on the west side of the residence area. Please use the unmarked graveled road that drops down from Eisenman across from the United Van Lines terminal and parallels the east side of the Adesa parking lot. These ponds are fenced and posted No Trespassing on the NE and NW corners and though the fence is broken down in a couple spots that is no excuse to cross over. There may have been some recent problems in this regard. The manager saw me, came out and spoke with me a few weeks back, I thanked him for allowing access to birders. He did not say yes or no. I left it go. Behave ourselves and it should be O.K.
CGB. RL

Re: New Merlin Sound app

Hi Rebecca,

When I open up the app and click Home, Explore Birds, then on the inverted caret in the right hand corner, I get “All installed birds.”  The Ruffed Grouse is there.  If I just explore “likely,” it’s not.  That would be within the Rocky Mountain pack.  I have to wonder if it’s not because there aren’t years of checklists from northern Gem County.
I suspect this platform will be tweaked as they receive feedback from ebirders.  I’m having lots of fun with it in the field but whenever I’m in low cell service, I get some oddball birds showing up.
Liz Medes