I went back down to Swan Lake Slough and Oxford Slough Saturday. There
were about 17 tundras and 14 trumpeter swans at Swan Lake Slough. Better
than last week, but still not the hundreds that I have seen in early spring
here in other years. 130 canvasbacks here was a good number.

The number of pintail was way down from 750+ at Oxford last week to 150+
this week. But, I have been birding the upper reaches of the slough, which
is private land, from the side of Oxford and Coulam Roads in Bannock
County, not Oxford Slough Waterfowl Production Area in Franklin County.
The WPA was mostly frozen last week and I understand it has opened up
significantly since. So the pinnies might have moved over there. There
were still good numbers of green-winged teal and American wigeon, a few
more northern shovelers and sandhill cranes, and a slight uptick in
cinnamon teal. I found 4 American avocets and 4 long-billed curlews here,
the latter including birds in undulating courtship/territorial display. I
also saw my FOY Franklin’s gull. The pastures and playas are fully flooded
along these roads and I’m hoping others visit later in the spring during
shorebird migration especially.

I hit Fort Hall Mine Landfill on the way home. The number of gulls was
truly impressive. They were tough to count, but I estimated at least 3500
California gulls, less than 10 of which were non-adults. There was about
the usual number of herring gulls (14) but ring-billed gulls were way down
– only about 50. I was able to pick out 1 immature Iceland (Thayer’s)
gull. I hope other birders check out this site and are more successful at
gleaning out rarities than I have been. Birders are allowed, just stop at
the drive-up check station.

My wife and I conducted the ID-40 short-eared owl survey north of Minidoka
National Wildlife Refuge Saturday evening. The wind was very calm and skies
were mostly clear. I did this route 2 years ago and found 1 shortear on
each of the 2 survey windows, but was skunked this year. We did find
long-billed curlews at at least 3 stops, including a bird in flight display
at one stop. Large flocks of snow geese headed north at sunset made me
think they were migrating out. But I got word of large numbers of snows
still at Minidoka NWR this morning.

Steven F. Kahl
Deputy Project Leader
Southeast Idaho National Wildlife Refuge Complex
4425 Burley Dr., Ste. A
Chubbuck, ID 83202
C (208) 252-0805
P (208) 237-6615 ext 112
F (208) 237-8213

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