This AM have seen 1 female & 1 juv male Rufous Hummingbird, 1 female Calliope & 1 female Black-chinned. Also, juvenile W Tanagers coming through. 10 Black-headed Grosbeaks & they like Russian Olive berries. 1 Red-naped Sapsucker & 2 Red-breasted Nuthatches. A couple of Wilson’s Warblers, as well. And it’s only 9:15 AM!

Brian Carrigan
Blackfoot

While birding along the Salmon River on Hwy 75 between Challis and Bayhorse (Custer County), I came across a very pale Gray Catbird juvenile today. I managed to get a couple of photos through layers of vegetation and posted them on my eBird checklist. (http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S38786956) Looking through photos online of darker juvenile Gray Catbirds makes me wonder if this individual might be leucistic. 
I wanted to also note that the birds really like the white berries on the Red Osier Dogwood. Both along the river today and up at Bayhorse yesterday, the bushes were hotbeds of activity with foraging Warbling Vireos and Western Tanagers. Chipmunks also seem partial to the berries, providing some nice photo ops.
Happy Birding,
Wendy McCradyChallis, ID

Four of us set out for Ontario and points northwest, wanting to get into the
zone of totality. The rest area just across the border in Oregon was jammed,
but orderly. We continued on and took the exit at Farewell Bend. The road
was lined with cars in places and the state park looked packed. We continued
on into Huntington and there were lots of cars and campers, but one block
off the main highway we found easy parking. We sat in a small park and had
lunch at a vacant picnic table (never expected that on eclipse day). We
walked uphill a couple of streets to the edge of town and got to watch the
whole thing unfold. Way cool.

What was even cooler was when the eclipse was just a few minutes past its
peak, the sky over town filled with Common Nighthawks, all calling and
flying much closer to the ground than in Boise. Prior to the eclipse we had
not heard or seen any of their ilk.

The drive back was a bit congested at times as folks came down out of the
zone of totality to the interstate, but we were home by 2pm, and it was cool
enough still that we managed a short bike ride (and 20 birds!).

Tom McCabe, Boise

Started really watching eclipse about an hr before totality. My hummingbird feeder suddenly had a male Rufous, female Rufous & 1 female Black-chinned. The seed feeders had from 7-8 Black-headed Grosbeaks, 4-5 House Finches, 2-3 Black-capped Chickadees & a lone Red-breasted Nuthatch coming in, all at once. In the cottonwoods were 2 Red-naped Sapsuckers. Activity increased with a lot of vocalizations & activity, and then, all got quiet the darker it got with the eclipse. Temp went from 69° to 62° & all feeders were empty at totality.

As sun reappeared & daylight increased, it took a good hour before feeder bird activity started returning. Fascinating event.

Brian Carrigan
Blackfoot

Partial solar eclipse here, with 99.64% obscuration

Began 1010 hrs, max 1127 hrs, ended 1249 hrs

Going into it,

Temperature dropped 74F to 66F

Gradual but accelerating darkening with shadows from our walnut tree leaves
becoming oddly fascinating (crescent-shaped)

Traffic noise hushed; we’re located between Chinden and State in west Boise,
and to have them go quiet was awesome =)

Bees and other insects departed, crickets chirped

Screech-owl began calling

Feeding frenzy ensued at our humfeeders, with RU gaining better control of
our back yard

Downey Woodpecker began calling, drumming

Passerines like magpies, chickadees, and finches withdrew

Coming out of the eclipse, reverse the above

Experiencing this at home, we enjoyed watching eclipse parties across the
country, with the liveliest maybe at Clemson SC?

We were also glued to the NASA website on our laptops, and texting with
family through the experience.. =)

Whew!

Larry

From: Larry Arnold [mailto:larnold47@cableone.net]
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2017 8:53 AM
To: ible@yahoogroups.com
Subject: humfeeder watch this morning

Birders and Eclipsers,

A few notes from our hood early on:

Screech-owls across the street were chatting 0400-0430 hrs

Our troop of 20-30 Mallards began foraging 0630, and range from
slightly/partially leucistic thru melanistic, i.e., a motley crew

First Black-chinned Hum (BC) showed up at our humfeeders 0639 hrs, followed
shortly by a hatch year (HY) Rufous (RU)

First Black-capped Chickadee 0704 hrs

We spotted a Calliope (CA) 0715 hrs, our first in two weeks, looking most
like a HY male

Red-breasted Nuthatch 0718

House Finch 0730

etc., etc.

I notice RU (when present) leaf-bathing many mornings on large wet leaves of
our grape plant, apparently dampened by one of our sprinklers 3x a week
(Mo,We,Fr)

Haven’t noticed any of our BC etc. doing this, but RU often tries to own
everything in the back yard, including humfeeders (8), salvias (Wendy’s
Wish), and these wet grape leaves along the back fence

Also noticed we still have an adult male BC, but he’s been confined by RU to
a back corner feeder that is not easily defended

Our humfeeders are purposefully scattered so RU can’t own everything. Note
that in areas with many more hums, like AZ, NM, CO, it may or may not make
any difference to scatter the feeders (I’ve been fiddling with this for 25+
yrs) 😉

Our current hum population estimate (back yard only) is 10 BC, 1 RU, 1 CA

As an aside, when I was searching nation-wide for the largest humfeeding
operations (1990s), the toppermost place I found was near Nogales AZ, where
hums peaked (in fall) at 16 gallons of 1:4 sugar-water (SW) daily, and at
night we either removed feeders or covered them to defeat fruit bats from
draining them, because Steve and Ruth Russell, et al., were doing a
quantitative study of SW consumption to better understand energetics, and
they were attempting to get an idea of relative numbers of hums vs.
consumption rates (allowing for SW “thieves” and other variables). Over the
years, loose “conversion factors” have ranged from 400 to 1000 hums per
gallon of SW per day, so we might readily appreciate how many hums they were
feeding at the Nogales location, eh?

Just for fun,

Larry

Awaiting max eclipsage here in west Boise…

Egadz.

From: Larry Arnold [mailto:larnold47@cableone.net]
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2017 8:53 AM
To: ible@yahoogroups.com
Subject: humfeeder watch this morning

Birders and Eclipsers,

A few notes from our hood early on:

Screech-owls across the street were chatting 0400-0430 hrs

Our troop of 20-30 Mallards began foraging 0630, and range from
slight/partial leucistic thru melanistic, i.e., a motley crew

First Black-chinned Hum (BC) showed up at our humfeeders 0639 hrs, followed
shortly by a hatch year (HY) Rufous (RU)

First Black-capped Chickadee 0704 hrs

We spotted a Calliope (CA) 0715 hrs, our first in two weeks, looking most
like a HY male

Red-breasted Nuthatch 0718

House Finch 0730

etc., etc.

I notice RU (when present) leaf-bathing many mornings on large wet leaves of
our grape plant, apparently dampened by one of our sprinklers 3x a week
(Mo,We,Fr)

Haven’t noticed any of our BC etc. doing this, but RU often tries to own
everything in the back yard, including humfeeders (8), salvias (Wendy’s
Wish), and these wet grape leaves along the back fence

Also noticed we still have an adult male BC, but he’s been confined by RU to
a back corner feeder that is not easily defended

Our humfeeders are purposefully scattered so RU can’t own everything. Note
that in areas with many more hums, like AZ, NM, CO, it may or may not make
any difference to scatter the feeders (I’ve been fiddling with this for 25+
yrs) 😉

Our current hum population estimate (back yard only) is 10 BC, 1 RU, 1 CA

As an aside, when I was searching nation-wide for the largest humfeeding
operations (1990s), the toppermost place I found was near Nogales AZ, where
hums peaked (in fall) at 16 gallons of 1:4 sugar-water (SW) daily, and at
night we either removed feeders or covered them to defeat fruit bats from
draining them, because Steve and Ruth Russell, et al., were doing a
quantitative study of SW consumption to better understand energetics, and
they were attempting to get an idea of relative numbers of hums vs.
consumption rates (allowing for SW “thieves” and other variables). Over the
years, loose “conversion factors” have ranged from 400 to 1000 hums per
gallon of SW per day, so we might readily appreciate how many hums they were
feeding at the Nogales location, eh?

Just for fun,

Larry

Awaiting max eclipsage here in west Boise…

Birders and Eclipsers,

A few notes from our hood early on:

Screech-owls across the street were chatting 0400-0430 hrs

Our troop of 20-30 Mallards began foraging 0630, and range from
slight/partial leucistic thru melanistic, i.e., a motley crew

First Black-chinned Hum (BC) showed up at our humfeeders 0639 hrs, followed
shortly by a hatch year (HY) Rufous (RU)

First Black-chinned Chickadee 0704 hrs

We spotted a Calliope (CA) 0715 hrs, our first in two weeks, looking most
like a HY male

Red-breasted Nuthatch 0718

House Finch 0730

etc., etc.

I notice RU (when present) leaf-bathing many mornings on large wet leaves of
our grape plant, apparently dampened by one of our sprinklers 3x a week
(Mo,We,Fr)

Haven’t noticed any of our BC etc. doing this, but RU often tries to own
everything in the back yard, including humfeeders (8), salvias (Wendy’s
Wish), and these wet grape leaves along the back fence

Also noticed we still have an adult male BC, but he’s been confined by RU to
a back corner feeder that is not easily defended

Our humfeeders are purposefully scattered so RU can’t own everything. Note
that in areas with many more hums, like AZ, NM, CO, it may or may not make
any difference to scatter the feeders (I’ve been fiddling with this for 25+
yrs) 😉

Our current hum population estimate (back yard only) is 10 BC, 1 RU, 1 CA

As an aside, when I was searching nation-wide for the largest humfeeding
operations (1990s), the toppermost place I found was near Nogales AZ, where
hums peaked (in fall) at 16 gallons of 1:4 sugar-water (SW) daily, and at
night we either removed feeders or covered them to defeat fruit bats from
draining them, because Steve and Ruth Russell, et al., were doing a
quantitative study of SW consumption to better understand energetics, and
they were attempting to get an idea of relative numbers of hums vs.
consumption rates (allowing for SW “thieves” and other variables). Over the
years, loose “conversion factors” have ranged from 400 to 1000 hums per
gallon of SW per day, so we might readily appreciate how many hums they were
feeding at the Nogales location, eh?

Just for fun,

Larry

Awaiting max eclipsage here in west Boise…

Well, besides the Rose-breasted Grosbeak, the next best bird today was a fly-over by an American Avocet. Also had sightings of 2 Yellow Warblers and a couple of Wilson’s Warblers. A single Bullock’s Oriole and 6 or 7 Black-headed Grosbeaks were present. Several Western Wood-Pewees were fly-catching on the place.

I did locate one female Black-chinned Hummingbird but never witnessed it at the feeder. Instead, it was visiting the cones at the top of the Blue Spruce trees. Although, I couldn’t tell exactly, I surmise it was gleaning insects trapped in the sticky sap of the cones. It was methodical in its visits to the cones.

Brian Carrigan
Blackfoot

I’ve been watching for a hummingbird this AM & also watching my seed feeders. No hummers but…a new yard bird at the feeder. A male Rose-breasted Grosbeak! Transient for Latilong 21 (& Idaho, in general). I took some very blurry photos with my phone camera. Overall, quieter than previous few days on this side of state, too, Larry. House Wrens still staging.

Brian Carrigan
Blackfoot

Brian et al.,

Speaking of fall migration…

Two days ago (Friday) our yard was a-buzz with 20-25 hummers of four sp, whereas yesterday we had half as many birds and only two sp (Black-chins plus a Rufous), eerily quiet, too quickly

Friday felt like “moving day” – Missy and I biked the Boise River Greenbelt and we saw/heard birds everywhere, on the wing, in the trees, on the ground, in the water, hustling, bustling, foraging, many calling, some still singing

Yesterday it felt like the family reunion was over and many birds had moved on (out of our microcosm), and/or had just “ducked” for cover!?

eBird asks us to contribute our observations during the eclipse, so we shall. =)

Approaching new moon with clear skies hereabouts, we’ve enjoyed our sliver of moon at dawn recently…

Ready or not, here it comes – the event of the season they say, zillions of star gazers, bumper-to-bumper traffic, higher gas prices, no motel rooms or camping spaces remaining, yada yada

We’ll enjoy the eclipse just fine, right where we are!

Please be safe out there folks!

Larry

West Boise

From: ible@yahoogroups.com [mailto:ible@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of lcarrigan_55@yahoo.com [ible]
Sent: Saturday, August 19, 2017 7:37 PM
To: ible@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [IBLE] MacGillivray’s Warbler

Just found a MacGillivray’s Warbler on the place. When I see this Warbler, means Fall migration is on. Down to a single juvenile Black-chinned Hummingbird at the nectar feeder, too.

Brian Carrigan
Blackfoot