That’s great Brian, cheers!
Monthly Archives: October 2026
Re: Interesting predator vs prey interaction
Interesting! As of today, I still have a single Blue Jay coming into the platform feeder for sunflower seeds. Fri, had an adult Sharp-shinned Hawk come in & scattered all the House Finches & BC Chickadees, but didn’t faze the jay, in the least. Just kept right on gathering seeds.
And, as of Fri, a single Steller’s Jay was still back in the woods. Today, have noticed the White-crowned Sparrows have moved on, but Juncos are still here in good numbers. And, a few Pine Siskins are still coming into the feeder. Otherwise, kinda’ quiet. Waiting for Snow Geese, Tundra & Trumpeter Swans to appear.
Brian Carrigan
Blackfoot
Interesting predator vs prey interaction
Howdy All, After 15 fall/winters feeding jays and several other species at our Valley Co. place I observed an interesting kerfuffle between a sharp-shinned hawk and 2 corvid species.
This went on continually for almost 90 minutes and as far as I could tell never resulted in a kill for the raptor.
My multi block suet feeder was being fed on by both Stellar’s jays and magpies at the time, when a SSHA began diving in and chasing the corvids.
Often the hawk would briefly perch on limbs feet away from the jays or w/I a few yards away before trying again. While the hawk watched the jays would almost immediately resume feeding.
With each attack the corvids either easily evaded the attack or ganged-up on the “inexperienced sharpie”. The raptor appeared to be a first year male as its size was barely larger than the 4-5 Stellar’s jays it was attacking.
All the while these attacks persisted the corvids continued to immediately return to the suet feeder, not appearing to be the least bit “panicked” by the attacks.
I’m guessing 3-4 dozen attacks occurred before the unsuccessful sharpie left the scene?
By that time I was feeling rather sorry for this hungry sharpie. 🤣 Sorry for the poor quality pics, thru glass.
Fun day in the Ponderosa’s, Cheers and happy birding.
Rich Rusnak
This went on continually for almost 90 minutes and as far as I could tell never resulted in a kill for the raptor.
My multi block suet feeder was being fed on by both Stellar’s jays and magpies at the time, when a SSHA began diving in and chasing the corvids.
Often the hawk would briefly perch on limbs feet away from the jays or w/I a few yards away before trying again. While the hawk watched the jays would almost immediately resume feeding.
With each attack the corvids either easily evaded the attack or ganged-up on the “inexperienced sharpie”. The raptor appeared to be a first year male as its size was barely larger than the 4-5 Stellar’s jays it was attacking.
All the while these attacks persisted the corvids continued to immediately return to the suet feeder, not appearing to be the least bit “panicked” by the attacks.
I’m guessing 3-4 dozen attacks occurred before the unsuccessful sharpie left the scene?
By that time I was feeling rather sorry for this hungry sharpie. 🤣 Sorry for the poor quality pics, thru glass.
Fun day in the Ponderosa’s, Cheers and happy birding.
Rich Rusnak
Re: Wedge-rumped Storm Petrels in Utah
It was definitelyTropical Storm Rachel that brought these birds to Utah. The east side and southeast quadrant of a tropical storm are typically favored for deposition of displaced and entrained pelagic birds. Rachel moved from the Baja coast near Ensenada, northeast and along the Nevada/Utah border, and Utah was therefore perfectly positioned along with the Salton Sea (CA) and Lake Havasu (CA/AZ), both of which got multiple storm petrel species. It’s relatively unlikely that sea birds would have been displaced to the west of the center of the circulation (i.e., into Idaho or central/northern Nevada), although not out of the question, and some of these birds could be dispersing as they try and make their way back to the ocean. I did not expect pelagic birds to make it nearly so far inland from this magnitude of tropical storm, but the track was ideal and we kind of missed the metaphorical boat in the Nevada (though a few observers searched Lakes Mead and Mojave on the Lower Colorado River), not helped by the appearance of a fantastic non-storm related (presumably) rarity/first state record in Henderson, NV (a Yellow Grosbeak) on the eve of the storm.
Happy Birding,
Carl Lundblad
Reno, NV
On Fri, Oct 16, 2026 at 10:49 AM Cliff Weisse via groups.io <cliffandlisa=octobersetters.com@groups.io> wrote:
Re: Wedge-rumped Storm Petrels in Utah
Here’s a checklist with some good photos:
https://ebird.org/checklist/S401885086
On 10/16/26 10:12AM, lcarrigan_55 via
groups.io wrote:
groups.io wrote:
Thanks for sharing, Cliff. The Pacific storms Rachel &
Simon must have really blown some birds off-course! If anyone
has any photos, please share on this forum. Would be
fascinating.Brian CarriganBlackfoot
-- Cliff and Lisa Weisse Island Park, Idaho cliffandlisa@...
Re: Wedge-rumped Storm Petrels in Utah
Thanks for sharing, Cliff. The Pacific storms Rachel & Simon must have really blown some birds off-course! If anyone has any photos, please share on this forum. Would be fascinating.
Brian Carrigan
Blackfoot
Wedge-rumped Storm Petrels in Utah
I just became aware of a few reports of Wedge-rumped Storm Petrels in northern Utah. One is at Hyrum Reservoir, only 30 miles from Bear Lake. If anyone is down that way, or at any southern Idaho reservoir, it might be worth taking a look just in case.
Cliff
—
Cliff and Lisa Weisse
Island Park, Idaho
cliffandlisa@…
Re: Steller’s Jay Replacement
It’s rather curious the Blue Jay has yet to establish a regular visitation pattern in the Treasure Valley, but they are very enjoyable to see/hear when passing through. I did get on briefly about 7-8 yrs ago at our Valley Co. place. I also get a kick out of watching the Stellar’s jays cache peanuts under a patch of moss, high up on Ponderosa’s.
Cheers, Rich Rusnak
Steller’s Jay Replacement
So, today a Blue Jay has appeared & the Steller’s Jay seems to be gone. The Blue Jay has been busy at the platform feeder making repeated trips, gathering as many as 10 seeds at a time, & caching them all around the yard. Stashing them at bases of trees, bushes, along crooks of tree limbs, etc. Have seen sev over the years. A few yrs back, one did quite similar and stayed for sev wks during the winter.
Brian Carrigan
Blackfoot
Re: Change in Weather Visitors
Same here in the Moonlight Mine area east of Pocatello where we’ve gotten 2″ of snow this a.m.. The usual winter gang, chickadees, mountain and black capped, house finches, pine siskins, red breasted nuthatches, hairy and downy woodpeckers are all around. Stellars Jays showed up a few weeks ago and have stayed. Evening grosbeaks arrived a couple of days ago too. Even had a red squirrel capture a finch at one feeder, second time we’ve seen that happen. A lack of pine cones this year might account for that.