We got a few more arrivals yesterday and I think earlier than usual. A kettle of Franklins Gulls were working the skies, plenty noisy. Lazuli and a Black Headed Grosbeak showed as well. Bluebirds have picked out a nest box, but we’ll see if swallows run them off. Finally I think I heard a first house wren a day or so ago. All three hummer species have shown and are displaying actively.

Bill Moore
Hoot Owl
Inkom

Hi Folks 
Just got to decent enough reception to share but Ben Wright (IBO field technician) and I got some great looks at 2 female McCown’s on a private ranch in a remote area of the Pahsimeroi valley – ~50 miles N of Howe just after noon today.  The birds were ~1/2 mile onto private property – we first had them calling/flying over and eventually had them land on an especially barren and cow-poopy area, and eventually were able to get close enough for decent (?? 🙂 digiscope pics.
These are almost certainly passing through – the short grass structure is perfect but we’ve done lots of curlew work & 4 seasons of June point count surveys in this area w/o having detected them previously.  
Thanks,
Jay

Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

Based on recent posts by Bill Moore & Susan Patla, I filled my hummingbird feeder &, so far, nothing. But, shouldn’t be too much longer before some arrive.

My Rose-breasted & Evening Grosbeaks have moved on. Male Yellow Warblers have arrived & staked out their territorial perches, loudly singing. I was awakened this AM by the calls of a flight of Sandhill Cranes & had a flyover of an Osprey with a good-sized trout in its talons. Swainson’s Hawks are here & an Am Kestrel pair is setting up a nest in a nearby cottonwood cavity. Wood Ducks, Canada Geese & Mallards are nesting

I totally revamped my feeder system with new pole & feeders & added an Oriole feeder this year. Bullock’s should arrive within the next 2 wks. I haven’t been able to check on the Bald Eagle pair which nests below our place, as all the channels off the Snake River are too high. But, the side benefit is that the fly-fishing with streamers off the backyard has been great!

Enjoy the rest of the weekend,
Brian Carrigan
Blackfoot

I also covered mostly Latah and a bit of Clearwater Counties for the Global
Big Day on Saturday, picking up 102 species (97 in Latah) over 14 hours. I
followed in Terry and Kirsten’s tracks for most of the day, and picked up a
similar list of highlights including:

Snow Goose: One in a field on ID-6 just north of Harvard
Tundra Swan: 6 on Little Bear Ridge, southeast of Troy, and 2 on ID-6 just
north of Harvard
TRUMPETER SWAN: Continuing bird found by Terry Gray at Moose Creek
Reservoir 2.5 weeks ago
GREATER SCAUP: Drake on US-95 near Estes Road, found earlier in the day by
Charles Swift
Barrow’s Goldeneye: Drake at Elk Creek Reservoir, Clearwater Co.
EARED GREBE: Alternate-plumaged beauty at Spring Valley Reservoir near Troy
Northern Goshawk: One was circling over the highway between Bovill and Elk
River
Black-necked Stilt: 2 at the pond on White Pine Flats Road, east of Troy
Bank Swallow: Finally, my first of the year, one was with other swallows in
Potlatch in the evening
Grasshopper Sparrow: One was along Butte Road, Tomer Butte east of Moscow

Arrivals by breeders in the past week seem to have been dominated by
Hammond’s Flycatchers, House Wrens, and Yellow Warblers, with each of those
species at several locations.

Good Birding,

Carl Lundblad
Moscow, ID

Action picking up here in Teton County with some newly arriving species in the neighborhood but still fairly quiet. Aspens started to leaf out the last few days. Today found House Wren, Green-tailed Towhee, Brown-headed Cowbird, Chipping Sparrow, and Morning Dove. Last night I also had a Broad-tailed hummer fly over my head at dusk.

What a treat May is!

Susan

________________________________________
From: ebird-checklist@cornell.edu
Sent: Sunday, May 6, 2018 2:39 AM
To: susan_patla@hotmail.com
Subject: eBird Report – Packsaddle Estates, May 5, 2018

Packsaddle Estates, Teton, Idaho, US
May 5, 2018 8:30 AM – 9:20 AM
Protocol: Traveling
1.5 mile(s)
Comments: walked the loop from our house down Grandview to creek and return on the upper road
24 species

Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus) 1 male drumming
Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura) 3
Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) 1
Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura) 1 FOY in neighborhood
Red-naped Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus nuchalis) 1
Northern Flicker (Red-shafted) (Colaptes auratus [cafer Group]) 1
Steller’s Jay (Cyanocitta stelleri) 1
Black-billed Magpie (Pica hudsonia) 2
Clark’s Nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana) 4
Common Raven (Corvus corax) 1
Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor) 4
Violet-green Swallow (Tachycineta thalassina) 4
Mountain Chickadee (Poecile gambeli) 1
Red-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta canadensis) 1
House Wren (Troglodytes aedon) 2 FOY heard singing, first one perched high in aspen tree
Ruby-crowned Kinglet (Regulus calendula) 2
American Robin (Turdus migratorius) X many throughout the area, singing and calling, one chased a tree swallow across the yard
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon’s) (Setophaga coronata auduboni) 3
Chipping Sparrow (Spizella passerina) 2 FOY
Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis) X
Green-tailed Towhee (Pipilo chlorurus) 1 FOY, male singing
Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater) 1 FOY Male percched on top of conifer
Evening Grosbeak (Coccothraustes vespertinus) 3
Cassin’s Finch (Haemorhous cassinii) 10 saw female singing top of conifer

View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S45335847

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org)

I got my first hummer right about on schedule this morning – female Calliope at the feeder (up for a little over a day).

Evening Grosbeaks still mobbing the sunflower and swallows and Cassins Finches have been around for a week plus.

Feeder up Eastern Idaho.

Bill Moore
Hoot Owl
Inkom

Not sure this went out yesterday, trying again/Bill

I got my first hummer right about on schedule this morning – female Calliope at the feeder (up for a little over a day).

Evening Grosbeaks still mobbing the sunflower and swallows and Cassins Finches have been around for a week plus.

Feeders up Eastern Idaho!

Bill Moore
Hoot Owl
Inkom

I birded mostly in Bonner and Boundary Counties this weekend beginning on
Lake Pend Oreille, where the first sign of migration was maybe 10,000
swallows (I conservatively eBird 5000) skimming over the water and
dominated by Violet-Green, Tree, and Northern Rough-winged, with smaller
numbers of Cliff and Barn but zero Banks (Vaux’s Swifts are also arriving
in small numbers). Arriving Nashville and Orange-crowned Warblers were
present in suitable habitat at most stops, but there wasn’t much water bird
migration to speak of. A walk around Hope produced 5 species of warblers
including Nashville, Orange-crowned, Yellow-rumped, Townsend’s (several),
and MacGillivray’s (one) plus my first-of-year Rufous Hummingbird and
Cassin’s Vireo. A flock of over 60 SNOW GEESE, 5 ROSS’S GEESE, and my
first Chipping Sparrows were near Selle, north of Kootenai. In the late
afternoon and evening, I birded the Kootenai River Valley from Bonners
Ferry to the international border. Kootenai NWR produced my Boundary
County fist VESPER SPARROW (photos:
https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S45044816). The major swallow movement
continued, but here, Northern Rough-winged was the dominant species.

Sunday morning I spent 3 hours at Boundary Creek WMA, where a minor fallout
of mostly Yellow-rumped Warblers and Tree Swallows was underway. There
were on the order of 80-100 Yellow-rumps lining the creek including 4-6
MYRTLE “YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLERS and a few other common migrants (warblers,
sparrows, Cassin’s Vireo, and my first Hammond’s Flycatcher). A female
MERLIN had a snack on a nearby snag. A WHITE-THROATED SPARROW was at
Kootenai NWR, later in the morning. Birding along the Pend Oreille River
in the afternoon was very quiet, but a nice drake RED-BREASTED MERGANSER
was in the river at the Riley Creek Recreation Area.

Good Birding,

Carl Lundblad
Moscow, ID

Thanks to Larry Arnold prepping me for a Yellow Warbler, I was able to find
one at the upstream end of Veterans Pond. Then, while looking for the
Western Grebe on Quinn’s Pond, which I found, I heard and then saw a trio of
Cassin’s Finches, at the upstream end of the pond. Larry had also found
these down at his end of the greenbelt.

I also found 2 pairs of Cinnamon Teal on Silver Lake. They weren’t new for
me for this year, but they sure were pretty.

Tom McCabe, Boise

FOY birds for us today near SW 6.4 of the Boise Greenbelt included
Black-chinned Hummingbird and Black-headed Grosbeak, our earliest date for
both species hereabouts..

A few Cassin’s Finches also showed up for the concert

Weather rocks! Migration rocks! Birds rock! =)

Larry

From: ible@yahoogroups.com [mailto:ible@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of ‘Tom
McCabe’ tmccabe9@cableone.net [ible]
Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2018 5:31 PM
To: ible@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [IBLE] Western Grebe at Quinn’s

For those of you in the Boise area who have not seen a Western Grebe yet
this year, there was one hanging out at Quinn’s Pond today. I had hoped that
the flow of weather from the south would bring more migrants, but this is
the only one I could find today. Hopefully the WEGR will hang around for a
while.

Tom McCabe, Boise