Yesterday, it was Common Redpolls. Today, it was a flock of about 50 Bohemian Waxwings. Over a couple of hours, the flock completely stripped every remaining fruit from a crabapple tree. When finished, wouldn’t say the waxwings were “drunk”, just very contented! They flew up to uppermost branches of a nearby golden willow & absorbed the sun for another hour or so, before taking off.
Between, the redpolls, crossbills &, now waxwings, definitely shaping up to be a good “irruption” winter of some rarities. Good number of Townsend’s Solitaires have appeared in Snake River Bottoms for the winter, as well. There’s a bumper crop of Rocky Mtn Juniper berries to feed on.
Common redpolls here in Halfway OR, SE corner of the Wallowa Mountains, 2800 ft elevation. It was a large flock, +30, flying around in pasture land, landing on Hawthorn bushes. A lifer for me😻
I’ve been spending time around Henry’s Lake this week and have
also been seeing flocks of redpolls. Today there was one large
flock numbering 50 or more foraging in Sagebrush. Seems like it is
indeed going to be a good winer for them.
Cliff
On 11/20/21 1:43 PM, lcarrigan_55 via
groups.io wrote:
Started seeing reports of Redpolls in W MT about 10 days ago. And,
then the note the other day on this forum. Just had a group of
about 20 Common Redpolls on our place along the Snake River. They
were working through dried tansy bush stands along a spring
channel. Shaping up to be a good winter finch irruption year. The
last weekend that Yellowstone roads were open recently, saw sev
large flocks of Red Crossbills. Winter Finches are on the move.
Circa 12 noon i needed am.tree sp.for my 599th lifer. one would think been birding 26 years I should have seen before now.so In spite of severe hip pain, surgery 3O Nov I enlisted my friend Richard rusnak to carry my folding camp chair to the flat area below park lot so I could sit & let birds come to me “bingo”sitting 2 hrs worth it .thanks
Also to birder Russell for fresh info & helping with chair it was worth the pain thanks to all.no red polls
Started seeing reports of Redpolls in W MT about 10 days ago. And, then the note the other day on this forum. Just had a group of about 20 Common Redpolls on our place along the Snake River. They were working through dried tansy bush stands along a spring channel. Shaping up to be a good winter finch irruption year. The last weekend that Yellowstone roads were open recently, saw sev large flocks of Red Crossbills. Winter Finches are on the move.
Thanks for the heads up, Cliff. As good an outcome for the loon as one might hope for. In the Garden City pond, the loon chose a scenic, if not a too-confined spot to hang around. My picture of the celebrity fowl.
I’ll just quickly add that Idaho Fish and Game did this in part in response to concerned folks on the birding forums (this and Facebook) as well as after communication with folks at the Ruth Melichar Bird Center, Golden Eagle Audubon, and Intermountain Bird Observatory.
Michael Young (listed in the article), Jamie Utz (the SW region Wildlife Diversity Biologist), and others put a lot of research and effort into how to do this correctly and I’m very appreciative for their efforts!
I know people had seen it in flight several weeks ago but the fact it hadn’t departed the pond since the spring strongly suggests that this relocation was the right thing to do.
