Every day of birding brings a surprise or two, yes? Yesterday at dawn I was biking our usual patch of the Boise Greenbelt when this chatty gal appeared along side of me, travelling in the same direction, heading to work. I love a good chat in the morning, and several topics flew by but we quickly settled on birds… whereon she said she grew up in Kansas and loved meadowlarks. Without warning, or introduction, she whistled a perfectly bright & cheery rendition of Western Meadowlark!

Whoa, Nellie!! That was extraordinary!!!!

I added her to my eBird list 😉

Larry

Today my Dad and I hiked 13.9 miles (whew!) in and out of Hyndman Basin in the Pioneers. We found my target bird, six BLACK ROSY-FINCHES. Yay! These were all the way up in Hyndman Basin, at the tree line. Also present along the trail at various lower elevations were an adult & young SHARP-SHINNED HAWK, a young NORTHERN GOSHAWK, & a female DUSKY GROUSE. Good stuff!
Happy birding,
Henry

Henry Griffin
▫️◾️◽️▪️

We get lots of Garage “birds”. The garage is a three bay one attached to the house, with third bay for yard equipment and wood. The only time the doors get shut is in depth of cold winter time as a heat break.

We get all sorts of birds trapped in garage, flying around the ceiling and too dumb for quite a while to fly out garage doors. We’ve had sapsuckers, wrens, siskens, goldfinches, chickadees, robins and many, many hummers (incomplete list). In the Summer it seems the garage is an indicator of what has fledged lately, because I think it is mostly juveniles that get trapped. Adults don’t seem to stay in garage long at all. I even bought a large butterfly net to try and catch really dumb ones and free outside; I’m 0 for 25 so far.

We’ve had wrens nest behind a plywood sheet protecting the windows from shifting wood piles for a couple years. We also had a winter snow storm Saw Whet and a Spring Sharpie hanging out for quite a few hours. Once weather calmed down they left.

Our mammalian “birds include feral cats, raccoons and skunks, but once we stopped feeding our cats in the garage, these unwelcome visitors are much, much less frequent.

No moose yet.

Bill Moore
Hoot Owl
Inkom
> On Aug 19, 2019, at 2:58 PM, lcarrigan_55@yahoo.com [ible] wrote:
>
> Had to respond to Bob’s garage birding list. His post just brought back some fond & funny memories. Before building a barn with a portion for a dog kennel, used to leave a garage door open for our first hound that led to an enclosed outdoor area. During those days garage bird visitors included: House Wren, House Finch & nesting Rough-winged Swallow pr. But best two were during some winter blizzards: first was a Saw-whet Owl that took refuge in the rafters & another storm pushed a Mt Chickadee in.
>
> The final straw, as far as my wife was concerned, was when a small colony of Little Brown Bats moved into the rafters. I got my barn, next dog moved out to the barn kennel & garage door became…closed.
>
> Brian Carrigan
> Blackfoot
>
>

That’s a pretty good garage list!

> On Aug 19, 2019, at 2:58 PM, lcarrigan_55@yahoo.com [ible] wrote:
>
> Had to respond to Bob’s garage birding list. His post just brought back some fond & funny memories. Before building a barn with a portion for a dog kennel, used to leave a garage door open for our first hound that led to an enclosed outdoor area. During those days garage bird visitors included: House Wren, House Finch & nesting Rough-winged Swallow pr. But best two were during some winter blizzards: first was a Saw-whet Owl that took refuge in the rafters & another storm pushed a Mt Chickadee in.
>
> The final straw, as far as my wife was concerned, was when a small colony of Little Brown Bats moved into the rafters. I got my barn, next dog moved out to the barn kennel & garage door became…closed.
>
> Brian Carrigan
> Blackfoot
>
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Had to respond to Bob’s garage birding list. His post just brought back some fond & funny memories. Before building a barn with a portion for a dog kennel, used to leave a garage door open for our first hound that led to an enclosed outdoor area. During those days garage bird visitors included: House Wren, House Finch & nesting Rough-winged Swallow pr. But best two were during some winter blizzards: first was a Saw-whet Owl that took refuge in the rafters & another storm pushed a Mt Chickadee in.

The final straw, as far as my wife was concerned, was when a small colony of Little Brown Bats moved into the rafters. I got my barn, next dog moved out to the barn kennel & garage door became…closed.

Brian Carrigan
Blackfoot

I expect most people don’t keep a garage bird list, but I’m going to start.

We had Mac Gilivray’s Warbler flying around for a few minutes before he figured out that the big doors were open and he could leave at any time.

I’m sure he is now happily on his way back south. I inadvertently brought home dozens of grasshoppers in the engine compartment from an outing at Camas NWR the other day, and some of them are still in the garage. That may be what attracted the warbler.

Good birding
Bob Davis
Idaho Falls

Wow, Larry! 12 feeders! Good for you. Most I’ve ever kept going is 3 &, in past few years, just one. Mainly, because as you noted…the cleaning. Not as easy as filling seeds in a platform feeder, lol! I clean in very hot water with a scrub brush & refill every 2 days & laziness on my part keeps me from maintaining more.

So, today, I’ve seen a couple of immature Calliope, both male & female, same with sev Rufous, a couple of immature female Black-chinned & a surprise adult male Black-chinned. Activity continues but the big flush of Rufous has moved on.

Brian Carrigan
Blackfoot

I watched a subadult broad-tailed last night in my yard here in the north end (Boise). What a beauty, especially his spotted cheeks and the how he perched for long periods of time. He traded off with a female black-chinned at one of my feeders all evening.

> On Aug 18, 2019, at 3:06 PM, LARRY ARNOLD larnold47@cableone.net [ible] wrote:
>
>
> I’ve been enjoying all the hum-chatter, both by the hums and by the good peoples reporting them… =)
>
> Guessing we’ve just passed our peak of fall migration here in west Boise, elev 2600 ft, and this might have been our highest number of hums since moving here 7 yrs ago. Estimating we had 25+ birds, mostly black-chins (always), precious few rufous, an occasional calliope, but no broad-tailed yet. Easily could have been 2x or 3x this number at our 12 feeders, which cannot all be watched at the same time.
>
> I consider feeding hummers to be a chess match, as I often move feeders around to different locations in hopes that they don’t become dominated by individual birds. I know that I could make “feeder maintenance” a lot easier by limiting the number of feeders we use, but we enjoy all the hum-fussing, hum-cussing, aerial jousting and DRAMA. Brian’s word “bittersweet” comes to mind – we hate to see them depart for the year, but I’m ready to take a break from washing feeders. 😉
>
> Larry
>
>
>
>
>
>

I’ve been enjoying all the hum-chatter, both by the hums and by the good peoples reporting them… =)

Guessing we’ve just passed our peak of fall migration here in west Boise, elev 2600 ft, and this might have been our highest number of hums since moving here 7 yrs ago. Estimating we had 25+ birds, mostly black-chins (always), precious few rufous, an occasional calliope, but no broad-tailed yet. Easily could have been 2x or 3x this number at our 12 feeders, which cannot all be watched at the same time.

I consider feeding hummers to be a chess match, as I often move feeders around to different locations in hopes that they don’t become dominated by individual birds. I know that I could make “feeder maintenance” a lot easier by limiting the number of feeders we use, but we enjoy all the hum-fussing, hum-cussing, aerial jousting and DRAMA. Brian’s word “bittersweet” comes to mind – we hate to see them depart for the year, but I’m ready to take a break from washing feeders. 😉

Larry

Here is my Sunday morning walk report from Packsaddle Estates in the foothills of the Big Hole Mountains in the NW area of Teton Valley. Observed 31 species which is higher than counts earlier in the month.

Before the wind picked up around 9am, saw and heard many birds: Large numbers of fledgling robins and Western Tanagers feeding in the service berry bushes. And for the first time ever, I saw one Eastern Kingbird near Packsaddle Creek perched briefly on an aspen.

Eurasian Collared-Dove 3
Mourning Dove 8
Broad-tailed Hummingbird 1
Rufous Hummingbird 4
Calliope Hummingbird 1
Sandhill Crane 2 heard calling below
Turkey Vulture 1
Northern Harrier 1
Red-tailed Hawk 1 calling
Red-naped Sapsucker 1
Western Wood-Pewee 6 2 singing, saw fledglings chasing adult
Eastern Kingbird 1 first sighting of this species at this location!
Warbling Vireo 4 food begging from adult, one with serviceberry fruit
Mountain Chickadee 1 at Youngblood’s feeder
Tree Swallow 12
Violet-green Swallow 14
Red-breasted Nuthatch 2
House Wren 2
Gray Catbird 1
Swainson’s Thrush 1
American Robin 27 robins feeding in serviceberry bushes all along route, speckling fading on immatures but still visible
Cedar Waxwing 3
Evening Grosbeak 3
House Finch 2
Cassin’s Finch 1 at Youngblood’s feeder, weak face pattern, light streaking below
Pine Siskin 3
American Goldfinch 2 heard calling as they flew overhead
Chipping Sparrow 4
Green-tailed Towhee 4
Yellow Warbler 7 heard two males giving partial songs
Yellow-rumped Warbler 4 immatures chasing each other, no singing heard
Western Tanager 14 only a few obvious male adults, many juveniles and females, did not get exact count by age class

View this checklist online at https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Febird.org%2Fview%2Fchecklist%2FS59079447&data=02%7C01%7C%7C8bbf2df6ddd34e615d5608d723fea6d0%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637017448932985544&sdata=ialsrdqPjm36V7QivHO426%2B4Ep27qJDr5%2FMiFjzH7%2Bg%3D&reserved=0