Thanks for the memories, Jim. I believe Karen Andreason and I saw the green heron(s).
Dean Jones
Re: Alan Gregory
I don’t think I ever set foot in Venango. I was a volunteer at Hawk Mt. Sanctuary for most of the 1990s and ran two North American Breeding Bird Survey routes in Pennsylvania (LIttle Marsh in Tioga and Potter counties was always fun; lots of species).
Re: Boise CBC preliminary species total
Kudos to our Boise CBC leaders, and participants!
I mentioned last night the 1981 count, my first. I’m attaching a scan of the page with our count, as published in American Birds – no kids, not on papyrus, but close 🙂
Seeing how the birds (and birders) have changed is one of the great appeals of our Christmas Bird Count, both from a scientific and more global perspective, but also from a personal and very specific perspective.
Jumping out at me beyond our 67 species were the count-week-but-not-count-day species : Pied-billed Grebe, Wood Duck, Ruddy Duck, and Mourning Dove.
Alan Gregory
When in PA.did you bird venango COUNTY near oil city
Boise CBC preliminary species total
Howdy folks
Boise’s CBC was held today in a mix of very foggy (~1/3 to 1/2 of the circle?) to beautiful sunny weather. A number of misses but some great finds. Thanks a ton to everyone who participated, and to the many folks to who helped coordinate!
Preliminary totals:
- participants: ~80
- species: 104 on count day, plus 6 count week species that had been seen Thurs-Sat but not today
Highlights:
- Trumpeter Swan (a 1st) – western greenbelt & ponds on N side
- RB Merganser (only a handful of years) – Barber Park
- Osprey (~7th time)
- Greater Yellowlegs (2nd time?)
- 2 Spotted Sandpipers (only a handful of years)
- Long-eared Owl (1st time?) – high in foothills
- 2 Bushtits (2nd time?) – on Joplin rd across from SW corner of storage facility
- Ovenbird (!!; 2nd time in a row) – private residence, can’t be seen from street
- I don’t know the address but knowing the CBC zone it was in, it can’t be more than ~2 miles from the bird we hosted last winter … same bird or serious coincidence??
- Western Tanager (1st time) – Barber Park
- Lincoln’s Sparrow (~4th time) – canal W of Borah Park
- good variety of finches – Red Crossbill, Pine Grosbeak, and Evening Grosbeak
- count week species: Lesser Scaup, Barred Owl, Lesser Black-backed and Herring Gulls, Blue Jay, Harris’s Sparrow
Misses (mainly due to fog or access):
- blackbirds (too foggy to see main roost in gravel pits) – Yellow-headed, Brewer’s, and BH Cowbird
- gulls – esp. Mew, Thayer’s (landfill & wastewater treatment facility closed)
- Ring-necked Pheasant (less & less habitat in our circle)
- Rough-legged Hawk
- American Pipit
Please let me know if I missed anything 🙂 & happy new year!
Jay
Re: Northern Goshawk, not Osprey Oops!
One of my best birding memories is having a Goshawk dive on me from her nest
high in an Eastern White Pine in 1998 at Nescopeck State Park, Pennsylvania.
Alan Gregory
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Re: Northern Goshawk, not Osprey Oops!
but Sarah, It is a Beautiful Goshawk😀I am so glad that you saw it.
Northern Goshawk, not Osprey Oops!
While conducting our Winter Raptor Survey between Wendell and Hagerman yesterday, we veered off the path to see if we could relocate the COLO. We spotted a large grey raptor with a black and white facial pattern that flew up into a Russian-olive. It was near the river and not in the South Hills. I took photos and called it a lingering Osprey. After submitting raptor route data and information about our Osprey sighting to Jeff Fleischer, he responded.
“You’ve got a Northern Goshawk, not an Osprey.” I have corrected my ebird report. I wish all of you who subscribe to ebird alerts were not privy to this embarrassing mistake. Alas, mea culpa.
Sarah
Harrier
Got a pretty decent, not great, pic of a Northern Harrier just off state Hwy. 67 this afternoon while motoring out to Mountain Home Air Force Base from the city of Mountain Home. I never fail to see one of these raptors while traveling north into Camas County or south off the highway to Grand View in Owyhee County. Does anyone know what the breeding status and population estimate is for southern Idaho? Rainy, off and on, but it didn’t slow the desert-loving Common Ravens.
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Re: Raptors
Yes, I would be interested in taking this on. I do travel up to Camas and Blaine counties several times a year, for birding, butterflying and bicycling.
Alan