Lower dam lake Lowell still snow geese & small flock buffleheads. Cove off
orchard 3 great egrets

Hi All,

With apologies for its lateness (but nevertheless timely with the 118th CBC
about to start!), here is the summary for Idaho’s CBC during the last
period –
https://idahobirds.net/birding-idaho/resources-and-links/christmas-bird-counts/.
Perhaps reading over this will get Idaho birders excited and thinking about
the upcoming counts. It seemed like the frigid weather was the highlight of
many Idaho counts but even with a general lack of exciting bird phenomena
last winter, there was plenty of interest for birders as you will see in
the summary. The overall CBC summary and other regional summaries,
including from surrounding states (and Idaho eventually), can be found here
http://www.audubon.org/summary-117th-christmas-bird-count-2016-2017. Thanks
to Stoddard Davenport for help reviewing southern Idaho CBC’s and for
really helpful formatting of the CBC summary data. Also thanks to Lisa
Weisse for publishing the summary on the idahobirds.net web site.

Charles.
—
Charles Swift
Moscow, Idaho
chaetura@gmail.com

After finding the SWAMP SPARROW in Moscow, birding was again superb at Mann
Lake east of Lewiston, this morning. I had several encounters with the
PALM WARBLER, ranging from the area before the settling ponds to well
beyond the model airplane area. It is usually near the Yellow-rumped
flock, but sometimes off by itself nearby. It forages low, very often on
the ground, and it really seems to like the areas of dense short (~1 foot)
willow saplings close to the lake shore. The DUSKY FLYCATCHER continues,
but still being very inconspicuous and difficult to see. I had at least
one SWAMP SPARROW, an American Tree Sparrow, an extremely late SAVANNAH
SPARROW, one DUNLIN, and a Peregrine Falcon. I finally tore myself away
from all those great birds, but as I pulled out of Mann Lake onto the
entrance road, a flock of juncos with one obvious sparrow flew across the
road in front of me. I stopped to investigate and immediately saw a nice
HARRIS’S SPARROW.

New and somewhat better photos of the Palm Warbler and some of the other
rarities are in my eBird checklist (
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S40864407).

Hell’s Gate State Park had lots of birds but I didn’t see the Mockingbird
or anything particularly unusual.

Good Birding,

Carl Lundblad
Moscow, ID

Lower dam lake Lowell 3:30 pm 700–1000 Snow geese when do they go further
south.

Found this beauty in Idaho Falls this morning.

Found this beauty in Idaho Falls this morning.

I just found a SWAMP SPARROW at the Sand Road Wetlands in Moscow. Sand
Road Wetlands are just south/southwest of the UI Arboretum and Botanical
Gardens, on the south side of West Palouse River Drive/Sand Road. You can
park at the Arboretum parking. The sparrow is due south of the westernmost
lone Ponderosa Pine sapling, visible from the road, and currently quite
vocal.

I’ll put photos on eBird later. I’m not sure if there are previous records
for Latah County, but it’s been an incredible fall for this species in the
Inland NW!

Good Birding

Carl Lundblad
Moscow, ID

For what I’m worth, I don’t mind items for sale as long as it doesn’t look like someone’s side business. I do object more to the trip announcements and offers. To me IBLE is not where multi-thousands $ ventures belong.

If anyone needs Evening Grosbeaks (in the future Grospigs), I have 100 – 125 in the area I would gladly send on (Cal Ranch and Tractor Supply love us). Mountain Chickadee made it another year and despite my valiant efforts, the Siskins remain Siskins and none have morphed to a Redpoll. I’ll keep trying.

Bill Moore
Inkom

After yesterday’s epic adventure (my body complained last night), I thought
today would be anti-climactic. Boy was I wrong.

I got a late start, but still left the house with 8 birds, thanks to the
Nuthatches and Pine Siskins, et. al. Still, it was relatively uneventful
until I got back from Ann Morrison and stopped at the rest room at ESP. As I
came out the door, I saw 2 very large birds flying around Quinn’s Pond. Two
adult Bald Eagles were harassing the gulls, and the sky was suddenly filled
with the gulls that had been floating on the pond. One of the eagles dove
down and I thought it was going to dive for a fish, but instead it did a
little feint at a nearby gull that immediately squawked. I looked around for
someone to share it with and finally got a passerby to take out his ear buds
long enough to hear “Bald Eagles!” and then he put the ear buds back in. Oh
well.

The whole time this was happening there was a Merlin in a tree by the river
and he seemed totally unimpressed (kind of like the ear buds guy). A little
further down the Garden City side I found a perched Cooper’s Hawk that
wasn’t even trying to hide. Maybe he’d just eaten.

Then, at the Garden City Senior Center, I saw a flock of birds go into a
tree on the other side of the street. I assumed they were Starlings, but it
turned out to be at least 50 Cedar Waxwings. Some of them were doing some
“flycatching,” but what self-respecting insect would be out on a day like
this? Anyway, this is an area where I saw a huge flock of CEWA’s in the rain
about a week ago, and 2 days ago I counted 24 Bohemians in a nearby tree.
Needless to say I’ll be keeping an eye on the area.

The rest of the ride included another Barrow’s Goldeneye near 45th St., 2
Great Blue Herons standing on the TOP of the grandstand at Les Bois,
Ring-neck Ducks on the pond at Les Bois, and Hooded Mergansers all over the
place.

My final tally was 38 birds in less than 16 miles. So a better “birds per
mile” rate than yesterday and less work.

Tom McCabe, Boise

Agreed.

Jane

On December 1, 2017, at 7:24 PM, Cliff and Lisa Weisse wrote:

Since it’s already being discussed in public I personally see no problem with occasional posts offering items for sale as long as they’re birding related.

Cliff

On 12/01/2017 03:09 PM, ‘Larry Arnold’ larnold47@cableone.net [ible] wrote:

Most state birding listservs I’ve been on DO allow this, i.e., listing of scopes, tripods, bins, birding books for sale, why not?

IMHO, Larry

From: ible@yahoogroups.com [mailto:ible@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Jane Westervelt jwestervelt@live.com [ible]
Sent: Friday, December 1, 2017 2:57 PM
To: Cliff Wiese
Subject: Re: [IBLE] Are

Cliff,

I don’t know that this has ever been talked about. I do know things have popped up on the list on occasion, scopes & binoculars and such. I personally don’t really mind an occasional post, but what counts as occasional?

What are your thoughts?

Jane

________________________________
From: ible@yahoogroups.com > on behalf of Robert Kiernan photobirder@gmail.com [ible] >
Sent: Friday, December 1, 2017 1:49 PM
To: Cliff Wiese
Subject: [IBLE] Are

Can we post things for sale on this site

—
Cliff and Lisa Weisse
Island Park, Idaho
cliffandlisa@octobersetters.com