Saw my first Junco, my favorite winter bird, yesterday in my yard in Northern Meridian.
Ruthann Greene
On Saturday, September 30, 2023 at 03:53:46 PM MDT, bike4birds <tmccabe9@…> wrote:
While I have been pleased by the continuing visits of RB Nuthatches, and the occasional visit by a WB Nuthatch, today brought a very pleasant addition. We looked out during the rain this morning and discovered several DE Juncos, a bird
we haven’t seen in our yard since late winter/early spring. But even more exciting was at least one White-crowned Sparrow! I don’t believe we’ve ever had one in our yard before, and on my regular biking route I usually only get them at the Les Bois racetrack.
I know they are here in the winter in many places, but they’ve never before chosen to grace our yard with their presence. Way cool.
While I have been pleased by the continuing visits of RB Nuthatches, and the occasional visit by a WB Nuthatch, today brought a very pleasant addition. We looked out during the rain this morning and discovered several DE Juncos, a bird
we haven’t seen in our yard since late winter/early spring. But even more exciting was at least one White-crowned Sparrow! I don’t believe we’ve ever had one in our yard before, and on my regular biking route I usually only get them at the Les Bois racetrack.
I know they are here in the winter in many places, but they’ve never before chosen to grace our yard with their presence. Way cool.
Interesting report. Looks like i missed some big migrant numbers. Brazil was birdy buggy and muggy. On top of that the group caught covid. Nice to be home. Paul
On Wednesday, September 13, 2023 at 05:32:07 PM MDT, Scott Tuthill <satuthill@…> wrote:
Let me follow up on Jay’s post about Chestnut-backed Chickadees up at the Lucky Peak IBO site. For reference I live in the Highlands part of Boise which is north of the Boise North End neighborhood up in the foothills. The elevation of my house is 3,200’ and there are many mature pine and fir trees in the immediate neighborhood. As the crow fly’s I think I am 7 miles from the Lucky Peak IBO site. I have lived in this house for 30 years and the last few weeks have been totally unique with respect to the same birds Jay mentioned.
Red-breasted Nuthatches are year-round residents. I hear them on a daily basis and they are easily found in the trees and visit my sunflower seed feeder. This time of year their numbers seem swelled based on the “birds of the year” traveling with the parents. It is not uncommon to see 3 or 4 fly into a tree together and explore the trunks and branches before flying off to another. Back in late August I started hearing an unfamiliar vocalization while out doing yard-work. After as much time as I have spent in this house I know the vocalizations of all the regulars. So, to hear something that was not one of them had me intrigued. To me it sounded like an emphatic high pitched “wee-deep”. I was scratching my head to place it. Finally on August 28th I put Merlin to work and it identified the call as Pygmy Nuthatch. This sent me into a scurry. I ran in grabbed my binoculars and after a short while tracked them down as they, at least 3, moved through the tops of some trees in my yard. Definitely a new yard bird. I have heard them off and on since then. Then a few days later my BirdNET-pi system reported and recorded White-breasted Nuthatch. This has happened before, and they turned out to be something else. And, it is a bid I have never seen at the house. But this time when I listened to a couple of recordings – sure enough they were White-breasted Nuthatches. One day the BirdNET-pi screen showed a decode of White-breasted Nuthatches as I was watching it. So I ran out into the yard. I got a quick glance of a bird that might have been one, but I was not positive. And, of course, there were no more vocalizations. So, though I feel highly confident there were White-breasted Nuthatches here, I never saw one. And eBird protocols do not support checklists with birds recorded by audio or video means. So, they have gone unreported there. But, if I do track one down that would complete the nuthatch tri-fecta in my yard. I never thought that would happen.
Moving on to chickadees. Black-capped Chickadees are also year-round residents. I also hear them on a daily basis and they are easily found in the trees and visit my sunflower seed feeder. A couple days ago my BirdNET-pi system reported and recorded Chestnut-backed Chickadee. This was a first in my memory. I listened to the recordings, they were short, and I was not sure. I am not familiar with their vocalizations. So, I passed it off as a decode error. Then I saw Jay’s post from this morning – which made me think I better pay more attention. This morning BirdNET-pi captured four recordings that it identified as Chestnut-backed Chickadees. I listened to them several times, compared them to recordings in the Sibley app, and I feel confident there were Chestnut-Backed Chickadees in my yard. I did not discover the recordings until three hours later and the birds were long gone. They may have only spent a matter of a couple of minutes within BirdNET-pi capture range. But, they were here. Now, I just need to have them come back and get a look at them.
Finally, lets move on to sparrows. One of the fun things about BirdNET-pi is that it is always listening. During the day it is listening. During the night it is listening. If you are watching Netflix, it is listening. The last two nights around 8PM it recorded a couple of sparrow “chip” notes. I feel confident they are from a sparrow. And to me they sound like they are from the same bird and the spectrograms look the same. BirdNET-pi has identified them as both Golden-crowned Sparrow and White-throated Sparrow. Merlin identified them as Golden-crowned Sparrow. I have not listened to them enough and compared them to known recordings to have any idea what they might be. (Though the eBird report of a Golden-crowned Sparrow up at Lucky Peak is an interesting coincidence.) I may never figure this one out – birding is not an exact science. If anyone wants to take a listen to them let me know and I can send the recordings your way.
It’s been a fun late summer for birding that’s for sure.
Just a heads up. From 10:30 to 10:45 this AM in Emmett, super cool obs of migratingTVs. At first, a dozen, low over a grassy/weedy field of several acres, flap-gliding then soaring, slowly rising from 100 ft to about 400 ft, others flapping in low from all over the compass, flapping into same area till they could soar and rise in this thermal–could see many perched on fence posts, and watched some recruit to this kettle. Some may have come from the ground or humps of dirt/rock/broken concrete amidst the tall weeds, and from nearby trees. At about 400 ft altitude, group of 17 headed out soaring in a beeline to SW, Followed by larger groups, totalling more than 100, on same SW heading in a ‘dense’ stream.
10:55, I passed this point again, and saw another two recruit low to same area, soar up and then beeline directly South. Then a dozen coalesced and rose, heading a bit west of south.
Fall has definitely arrived in E ID. 29° this AM & frost past two nights. Narrowleaf cottonwoods along the river & aspen up higher have started getting color. And brown trout are in their fall run on the Snake, my fave fly-fishing time of the year!
Bird wise: DE Juncos have started their winter arrival, White-crowned & Chipping Sparrows have been pushing through & a large kettle of Turkey Vultures came overhead a bit ago, headed South. As the BH Grosbeaks have all left only visitors past WK, to the platform feeder, have been local BC Chickadees, RB Nuthatches & House Finches. Did see a single Yellow-rumped Warbler come through yesterday.
Hey out there in ible-land, RL here. Some changes, for the worse(?), happening at Blue Lake Sewage Ponds (ebird Hotspot) here in SE end of Boise just off the turnpike. I assume the owners are “cleaning(?)” the place up. The big pond’s cattails, that have been growing there the last 2-3yrs., as well as the small Russian Olive thicket, have been recently burned out and the pond seems to be in the process of having the residue cleared. Only one small willow on the far side remains. The other ponds are not being touched, at the moment. Not sure how much is to be done. Not my place to ask as it is pvt. prop., but, this seems to happen periodically. Three years ago all the vegetation on the berms inside the fence was cleared. Many years before that, when I first was shown this place, the same thing happened and it was 20yrs. before anyone, or I, returned. CGB. RL
A couple days ago, I was surprised to see a Dusky Grouse in my front yard in the east end of the Emmett valley. It was quite wary and didn’t stay long. I haven’t seen it again since then.
No if you continue the winter feeder watch then that data is all going to the same place so no need to fill out this form for that. However for ebird locations it would be good to fill out our observation form as well bc it will input right
into the rosy-finch groups hands.
The Rosy-finch Working group has been working hard on several protocols and one of them is a basic incidental observation form. I thought I would distribute to IBLE and ask that if you encounter any of the rosy-finch species you please
use this form to submit the data directly to the working group. Please consider submitting this even if you do an ebird checklist as it contains detailed information and will put data directly into our hands as we begin curating long-term datasets.
