Many quail and partridge species are raised domestically in South West Idaho in back yards etc.. The are raised for a variety of reasons, eggs, food, dog training. Also falconers use them for training falcons and hawks.
The images are somewhat over exposed but the breast looks white with no markings unlike a Northern Bobwhite. But with the variety of birds you can buy or breed it is hard for me to tell for sure.
Last week while on our morning walk in our neighborhood, Hillsdale Creek, in southeast Meridian, we heard a bird that made us both stop to listen closer. I had no idea what it was. We heard it the next morning again and always at Hillsdale Creek Elementary. I tried to use Merlin to ID the sound but it wouldn’t pick it up. So yesterday I walked over to the school with binoculars and my camera determined to find this mystery bird. Again, I heard it several times and very clearly but Merlin wouldn’t ID it. At one point I saw a head peek out of the bushes and was gone again in an instant. My first thought was, Bobwhite. But I’ve never actually seen one or heard one for that matter. I watched and waited and finally was about to give up and started to walk away and suddenly there was a bird sitting just outside of the brush. I got several pictures and this definitely looked like a Bobwhite. I got home and listened to every recording I could find for the NOBO, but nothing matched what I had heard.
I heard the bird again this morning on our walk, so I feel like this bird is definitely hanging out.
If anyone goes to chase it I’m curious to know your thoughts on her call. Maybe it’s very normal after all for a NOBO but like I said, I didn’t hear any recordings that were similar to what I heard.
Or perhaps I got it wrong all together! Let me know your thoughts!
Yvonne Motherwell
#worldsokayestbirder
Meridian, ID
Ken Miracle chukar28@… 208-570-2780 “Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God” 2COR 3:5
Last week while on our morning walk in our neighborhood, Hillsdale Creek, in southeast Meridian, we heard a bird that made us both stop to listen closer. I had no idea what it was. We heard it the next morning again and always at Hillsdale Creek Elementary. I tried to use Merlin to ID the sound but it wouldn’t pick it up. So yesterday I walked over to the school with binoculars and my camera determined to find this mystery bird. Again, I heard it several times and very clearly but Merlin wouldn’t ID it. At one point I saw a head peek out of the bushes and was gone again in an instant. My first thought was, Bobwhite. But I’ve never actually seen one or heard one for that matter. I watched and waited and finally was about to give up and started to walk away and suddenly there was a bird sitting just outside of the brush. I got several pictures and this definitely looked like a Bobwhite. I got home and listened to every recording I could find for the NOBO, but nothing matched what I had heard.
I heard the bird again this morning on our walk, so I feel like this bird is definitely hanging out.
If anyone goes to chase it I’m curious to know your thoughts on her call. Maybe it’s very normal after all for a NOBO but like I said, I didn’t hear any recordings that were similar to what I heard.
9:25am July 5, 2023 Common Nighthawks flying over Boise River at Barber Park seen from accessible platform off trail closest to restroom & boat launch.
Good to hear from you, RL! It doesn’t seem particularly early for Western Sandpipers, to me. Along with Rufous Hummingbirds, shorebird “fall” migration routinely begins before July with southbound Wilson’s Phalaropes arriving around the third week of June, and yellowlegs, solitary sandpipers, and the earliest peeps expected before the end of the month (and volume picking up dramatically in early-mid July). There is little to no gap between the end of northbound songbird migration (lasting well into the first half of June) and southbound migration for the earliest groups like shorebirds and hummers.
Not posted here in many months. Getting back into system to put something out is much harder than it used to be. But here I go. Reading with much interest the last few days about the “appearance” of RUHU’s already heading South. No hummers in my neighborhood (SE Boise), too many squirrels. Sigh! This afternoon got my first “peep” sandpipers on the move (Mtn. Home Res.), been looking the past two weeks. Seems way early, by about two weeks. For those of all y’all who groove on this kind of thing, is there any validity in the timing of this observation? Anyway, picked up six WESA’s and one, “fo sho” (pardon my Southern-ism),SESA. Straight, short tubular bill, good color/patterning. Had another that seemed in between the two species in bill size/shape, body coloration/patterning. Undecided. Am going thru my photos carefully in hope I got one of it. Not a yellow-leg in the bunch, only black-legs. All birds same size, so, no LESA’s, Baird’s or WRSA’s. Sorry. CGB. RL
With Linda’s post…even more to ponder. Our Black-chinneds usually don’t start to disappear until late July. And, will have juvenile BC into Aug, as the female & juvenile Rufous start to arrive. Starting to think, all bets are off this year! Was it the long winter/late spring? Delay in flowering nectar sources? Wildfires in W Canada? Reason nature is so cool, nothing ever “fits” cleanly into a box. Just when one thinks there’s a rhyme & reason, nature throws a curve ball.
I live in the Priest River/Sandpoint area and this is the latest we have had adult male rufous and black-chinned hummingbirds in the 30+ years I have lived here. By now they are normally long gone heading south with only the females and juveniles around.
Very kind, Virginia. Not quite as “crisp” as wanted…they’re fast little buggers, lol! Kept trying to get one head-on with that gorget in full flame-view, but no luck.
Could be, Cliff. Maybe by June, there’s no more “need” for male Rufous Hummingbirds & they hit the road. Once the Rufous nestlings have fledged & flying, then the females are next to leave. Perhaps, taking a bit of a diff’t route. Have been fascinated by the numbers of juveniles which come through, seemingly just groups of juvies. How do they know where to migrate to??? An inherited, genetic “map”? Kind of like, if a BH Cowbird is raised by a Yellow Warbler, how does it know to be a…cowbird??? 🤔 So many questions/so little time. Plus, I get distracted easily, esp with fly-fishing 😁.
Brian Carrigan Blackfoot
Home of Idaho Birding and the Idaho Bird Records Committee
