I got out for some local birding over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. On
Thursday morning, I birded at Mann Lake and again had 2 SWAMP SPARROWS
foraging secretively in the dry weeds well east of the lake and north of
the model airplane area. A single BOHEMIAN WAXWING was only the second one
I’ve seen this fall and the second one I’ve ever seen at Mann Lake (both on
Thanksgiving, 2 years in a row). Full list and documentation on eBird:
https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S50129588. A weird intergrade Northern
Flicker at Hell’s Gate SP had yellow-orange shafts, a mostly-gray
red-shafted like face pattern, red malar, and very faint red crescent on
the nape: https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S50134081.

This morning I birded in the University of Idaho Golf Course (closed to
golfers for the season). I had a distant view of a funky Haemorhous finch,
and then later heard the distinctive “pik-pik-pik” flight calls of an
apparent Purple Finch flying with a flock of House Finches. I figured the
Purple Finch may have flown to the upper end of the adjacent UI Arboretum,
so I eventually headed up there but failed to find it foraging among many
American Robins, House Finches, and Dark-eyed Juncos. There’s still a
good-sized flock of Audubon’s Warblers in the arboretum, and on Wednesday
afternoon I had a MYRTLE Yellow-rumped Warbler among them. This afternoon
I birded mostly on the Washington side of the Snake River, in Asotin
County. At Chief Timothy Park, west of Clarkston, I found another SWAMP
SPARROW on the marshy edge to the right hand side as soon as turning off
the highway onto the entrance road. I couldn’t get a photo of the
secretive back-lit sparrow, but I did get some voice recordings of its
distinctive call: https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S50213748.

Good Birding,

Carl Lundblad
Moscow, ID