Haven’t seen any sign of Salmonellosis at my location. So, refilled feeders yest with black oil sunflower seeds for first time in 2 months. This AM, 6 Evening Grosbeaks were busy eating seeds! First I’ve seen of them since a 2 wk irruption last Fall.
Confession time! While I normally do exactly what Cheryl said, this time I decided to “cheat.” I carried a pen and a piece of paper and wrote down the birds 5 and 10 at a time. When I did a longer ride last week, I found myself enjoying the birds less as I approached 50 (too much thinking involved). Since I was hoping for a 50+ day. I decided to cheat. But on “normal” rides I will continue to exercise my brain. As most of you know, it was my therapy to cure my “chemo-brain,” after lymphoma. Now if there was only something to cure my “dumbs**t brain.”
I tried doing the memory thing for a given place. Didn’t work too well for me, too many birds at some of the places I get to. And being badly scatter-brained nowadays, why I still use pencil and paper as I go, allows me to put notes on my ebird postings later… and I can check for any place corrections. Don’t care for the ebird app, takes too long when I can better use the time to observe and appreciate the time and place about me. Plus you can’t seem to engage the maps and correct for Hotspots one is at.
Do miss your poetic endeavors here on some postings here, Tom. Will there be any more in the near future?
Agree with Cheryl that it’s very impressive brain work – you set a great example 😊
Reporting that we had a Spotted Towhee in our yard (near you) March 28th – a first for our (literal) yard list though I spotted one nearby years ago- oddly at rest (briefly) in the street. Do we have a theme of parallelism going here, ya think?
Also agree with Cheryl – love your reports and keep it up, please!
That list is impressive but even more so because I know you memorize those birds – in order of being seen – and write them all down from memory when you get home. I’ve been trying to do it but it’s hard! Great Brain Exercise! You get a double whammy on your Bike4Birds – Physical and Mental Exercise!
I photographed these Snow Geese on the reservoir (fake lake) just outside the city limit of Mountain Home, Elmore County. I live about a mile from this spot. Hard to count the birds, and there are some Canada Geese mixed in, but easily a thousand scattered across the water and adjacent ag field.
Alan Gregory
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Alan C Gregory Lt. Col., USAF, Ret. Mountain Home, ID Air Force Public Affairs Alumni Association, life member
Sierra club, life member
Member, North American Butterfly Association
Home of Idaho Birding and the Idaho Bird Records Committee