Darren, sorry, no TURNSTONE. T’would be a good one, eh? that was just an azimuth check. wicked grin. before moving back to Idaho 7 yrs ago i got on IBLE and noticed it was quite active. but since then, i see that other state listservs have also caved to FB, so IBLE isn’t alone in going by the wayside. sad we have no single “bird channel” any more, but it’s our new reality.
From: “Darren Clark”
To: “Larry Arnold”
Cc: “IBLE”
Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2019 10:21:40 PM
Subject: Re: [IBLE] Turnstone !!
So there’s no Tunstone?…
Anyway, To be honest, I rarely check or post to IBLE anymore. It’s sort of sad, because in its early days I found a great community of birders and learned a lot about the birds of Idaho. For better or worse, Facebook is much more convenient (posting and viewing photos is really cumbersome in IBLE) and it’s what I use to share and receive news about recent Idaho bird sightings and information (as well as Ebird).
My apologies to my friends Cliff and Steve (a couple of serious Idaho listers) who don’t use Facebook.
Darren
On May 15, 2019, at 9:30 PM, LARRY ARNOLD [ mailto:larnold47@cableone.net | larnold47@cableone.net ] [ible] < [ mailto:ible-noreply@yahoogroups.com | ible-noreply@yahoogroups.com ] > wrote:
Behzinga!
Do Idaho listers read or post IBLE anymore? Just checking…
Our agenda today was Elmore County, as much and as long as we could handle. We missed most of our eight target species, snagging only two, but the sheer abundance of Lazuli Buntings, chats and snakes (yes snakes) was insane and worth the trip, plus we snagged 70 sp +/- by noon.
The recent Short-billed Dowitcher spot was not on today’s radar screen, but since we would be driving by it on our way home, and since we had never heard of the place, we had to find it and look for birds. One of the first things we saw made me LOL…. A Red-winged Blackbird along the shore of Pond 3 was turning every stone the size of golf balls and tennis balls….. what a hoot!!
After scanning the visible shorelines 40 minutes or so, THE dowitcher appeared on the SE corner of Pond 3, having the shortest bill (relative to head) of any dowitcher I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a zillion LBDO across the country and many SBDO on the Gulf Coast and elsewhere. But of course, relative bill length “isn’t a field mark per se” so we focused on the flanks and belly, and soon realized that even Sibley doesn’t do justice to the species. This bird made sense here in brackish water (likely) and it was alone among the ducks and a few other shorebird species. We hadn’t seen recent reports on IBLE or eBird (since Sunday), so we weren’t expecting the bird to be here.
Happy campers are us =)
Larry