There have been several reports of Broad-winged Hawk already this spring so they were on my radar screen. Yesterday afternoon I was getting gas in Ashton and looked up to see a distant interaction between hawks. A Red-tailed was chasing a much smaller buteo so I immediately thought Broad-winged. I watched for a minute or two and the smaller bird behaved just like the Red-tailed only with faster wing beats. All I could really make out from the distance was stark white under side of the wings and a white band on or near the base of the tail. Northern Harrier crossed my mind but the whole shape and behavior was wrong. There really isn’t anything else it could have been so I’m confident in the ID despite the distance and short duration of the observation. This is the second Broad-winged I’ve seen here in spring. I’ve seen three in the area in October and one in June hunting stone flies that were hatching from the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River downstream from Island Park dam. Not anywhere near as cool as the Little Blue Heron seen earlier this week (unfortunately not by me) but still a pretty good bird.
Cliff
— Cliff and Lisa Weisse Island Park, Idaho cliffandlisa@…
Saw my first group of little yellow fluffy goslings sandwiched between parents at front & back, all in a line, down on the Snake this AM. Had gone down to check on fishing conditions. River came up a bit during the night. Did see a couple of good rises. Water’s supposed to drop again mid-week.
All my usual bird harbingers of Spring are now here (House Wren, Yellow Warbler, Bullock’s Oriole, BH Grosbeak, Lazuli Bunting, Swainson’s Hawk, RW Blackbird, Black-chinned Hummingbird) except for Western Tanager. Tanager can be fickle along the Snake River Bottoms. Sometimes, passing through in large numbers, other times…one or two & have to be at right place at right time. If I miss at home, will head into mountains to a spot that never fails me to locate one.
This evening, first Swainson’s Hawk of season came overhead. Others, over past week: Black-headed Grosbeak, female Red-winged Blackbird (males arrived over a month ago), numerous Chipping & White-crowned Sparrows pushing through, Red-naped Sapsucker, Tree Swallows & Violet-green Swallows. Best bird was a Black-backed Woodpecker pounding on a dead fir tree, near Island Park Reservoir, this weekend.
Dean, that is incredibly gracious thanks for the offer. I think I’ll be OK. It’s only minimally opaque, like 95% perfect image. I’ll just get it repaired after I return from Malhuer. Take care, and have a great spring birding time. Cheers, Rich
I hope this never happens to any of you, beware. See photo, and be very careful if you clean your optics lenses of dust using a can of compressed air, designed for PC keyboards. The issue occurs when the can is held flat or upturned, resulting in extremely cold moist air to be released. My Vortex scope now has a damaged inner layer to the lens. Surprisingly the image viewing is not severely degraded and usable with only a tiny degree of opaqueness at all magnifications. Huge freak out when this occurred as you can imagine, but Vortex customer support is sending me a postage paid label to return the scope for no cost repairs. This is exceptional news and worthy of the price for Vortex HD series scope. Leaving for Malhuer tomorrow no less and this happens, LOL!😂 Cheers ya’ll, and happy lifer pursuits! Rich Rusnak
