Make your camping reservations well in advance. The number of campgrounds are limited and they see heavy use in summer. You may want to consider camping in a dispersed site. Weekends are particularly busy and even dispersed sites may be hard to find.
Great gray owls, boreal owls, and rosy-finches are all higher elevation or latitude species in summer. White-winged crossbills are a very hit and miss species. Best bet is to use eBird to check out possible locations for some of these species.
Others have already covered where you might hear mountain quail and see or hear chukar. Chukar may well be the easiest species to find. Look and listen in dry rocky areas at lower elevations.
There are recent sightings (hearings actually, I don’t think anybody is seeing them) of Mountain Quail near Riggins (they are in eBird). They were very vocal when I went to get them last week. There were also Chukars all over the hillsides (they were seen and heard). I don’t have any current info on your other species.
My name is Christian Walker I’m a birder from Texas. My friend and I are doing a road trip from Spokane Washington down to the Albion Mountains and then over to Lander Wyoming in a few weeks. If anyone is willing to help out with some of my questions below I would greatly appreciate any help!
-What is a good spot to stop for camping/birding in between Spokane and Albion Mountains?
-We are going to the Albion Mountains to look for Cassia Crossbills. Looks like the Porcupine Springs Campground is a good place to camp and maybe see them. Any specific advice?
-Any good spots for Mountain Quail and advice on how to find them? This is a nemesis bird for me and I would love to see them.
-Same for Chukar – any good places to check or advice on how to find them?
-Are there any easy ways to see Black Rosy-Finches that don’t involve huge hikes up above tree line? Any good spots?
-Any info on Great Gray Owls or Boreal Owls around that would be worth checking out? I understand these are sensitive species so obviously would keep any info to myself.
-Any good spots for Northern Goshawk?
-Are White-winged Crossbills around at all?
Thanks again for any advice anyone is willing to give me.
A little over a year ago I purchased new from Birdwatching.com a birding scope and associated accessories but I haven’t used it as much as I anticipated. So I’m selling it and thought someone here might be looking. From my understanding this scope is thought to be one of the best for birding in the world (ranked number one for example by Audubon in top-of-the-line, https://www.audubon.org/news/top-line) . Here’s the setup:
1. Kowa TSN-883 88mm Prominar Pure Fluorite Angled Spotting Scope with the Kowa TE-11WZ 25-60x Wide Angle Zoom Eyepiece
2. An always on Kowa Carry Case CNW-11
3. Induro Tripod CLT204 No. 2 Stealth Carbon Fiber Tripod, 4 Sections, including padded carrying case
4. Manfrotto Micro Fluid Head 128RC
5. Meopta MeoPix Uni 2 Smartphone Digiscoping Adapter for smartphone
I’m asking $3,000 for it all, which by my calculations, with sales taxes savings, is about $600 less than the retail price today. As I said I’ve used it very little so everything is in like new condition.
Contact me for more information, if you’ve never owned a scope the different parts of the tripod apparatus can be confusing, I know it was for me, so I can send more specific details about all that.
Tad Blank, tadblank@…, located in Boise (I’m on ebird and my profile is public if you want to look)
Thanks Mark. I guess it makes sense for them to take advantage of Salmon Flies, especially considering their size. If they’re big enough to attract Swainson’s Hawks (and an occasional Red-tailed) they’re an even bigger meal for a Broad-winged.
