Black-tailed Gull!! (in Washington)

OK, so maybe this isn't relevant since it didn't occur in Idaho, but it is birding .... and, I received official permission from 'the boss' herself to see this bird w/o her since it wasn't in Idaho. Quite magnanimous, huh?

I SAW A MEGA-LIFER ON FRIDAY!

The story: Last week I was attending a conference in Forest Grove, OR (Partners in Flight Western Working Group) Tues - Thurs. I planned to stay thru Friday in case I decided to join the conference field trip and/or do some other birding. Good thing b/c about a week before the conference, I caught wind of an adult Black-tailed Gull being seen near Tacoma, Washington. I watched the Washington birding hotline all week to see if it was sticking around ... and it did!

Even better news was that Jon and Dave (IBO 2009 hawkwatchers) were on a road trip and arriving in Portland Thursday night .... and they wanted to go up and see the bird and were willing to bring me back to the Portland airport in time for my Friday night flight! The next AM, I got up way-too-early to take various modes of public transport to meet those guys in Portland and they met me in the 'Batmobile' (Dave's sweet ride) and we headed north. Near Battleground, we picked up Stephanie (IBO '09 songbirder - who's about to fly to Australia for a field job!). As she got in, she said, "so, what rare birds are we going after?" Seriously? I love it! Jon hadn't even told her what species we were chasing but she was up for an adventure!!

We arrived to Tacoma just before noon and followed my friend Drew (we took Ornithology together at The Evergreen State College in 1994 and have remained friends and birding/traveling buddies since) to the viewing site. We only had about 10 minutes before a major squall rolled in and chased us down the road. BUT, we were able to locate the bird pretty quickly and enjoyed some quick views at a major lifer for all of us.

To escape the rain, we headed down the road a couple miles to a quirky restaurant called 'The Ark'. We walked in with binoculars around our necks, looking wet and a little bewildered ... one employee asked, "what are you guys up to? birdwatching?" to which we replied, "How'd ya know?" .... "your hat says 'Birdnerd' and you're wearing binoculars!" .... "good point ;-)"

Dave & Jay trying to identify a pair of small, black (& stuffed) birds that resembled a cross between a crow, a Burrowing Owl, and a puffbird ;-) that we found in a Tacoma restaurant called 'The Ark' (they were missing one of their Zebras ...)

After a while, the rain cleared so we raced back to the site to enjoy more views of the bird ...

Birders lined up on shore viewing the Black-tailed Gull (Stephanie, of recent Lucky Peak fame, is at front and my old buddie, Drew - brown hat -, came to meet us even though he'd already seen the bird)

The big gull roost on log booms in the harbor

The main view we had of the Black-tailed Gull as viewed from shore through the scope - you can see the darker mantle than surrounding gulls (including a couple of California Gulls) as well as the smudgy, hooded look to the head (characteristic of adults in winter). Other gulls present include Mew and Bonaparte's.

A close-up view of the adult Black-tailed Gull (by John Puschock; for more pictures, click here)

All in all, a pretty sweet day ... I got to see an old friend, see a major lifer that I'd hoped for over the years, and got to enjoy some time with some characters from the awesome '09 Lucky Peak crew.

Happy birding,

Jay

return to Mountain View and CJ Strike Reservoirs

On Saturday morning earlier this week, Jay and I met up bright and early and headed for CJ Strike Reservoir. Our goal birds are still the loons, scoters, and gulls, so CJ Strike is definitely a great place to check these guys out.
We arrived as the sun was coming up, and were sad to see that the water was all covered in a thick fog! We waited around at the base of the dam, watching the flock of gulls that was visible from there, and soon we watched the sun hit the fog and burn it all off.

Fog on the river below CJ Strike

We scanned from a few places along the shore, and saw plenty of birds, but mostly Western/Clarks Grebes and TOO many Common Loons! where are all our Yellow-billed and Pacific Loons? ;)
We then hit the highway again to reach Mountain View reservoir, knowing that we'd return to CJ Strike at the end of our birding day.
We got to Mountain View, and the bird community had changed a lot! Almost all the shorebirds were gone, and more waterfowl had come in to replace them!
We stopped first at the actual reservoir itself, before heading to the productive 'Blue Creek' area below the dam.
Of course there were plenty of loons here too, and we drove to several different vantage points to check out what turned out to be Common's....but we tried our best to make them into something else! :)
While walking to another spot to scope, Jay glimpsed a bird just as it dove underwater....a Scoter!
I'd never seen ANY scoter species before, so I knew whatever popped up would be a lifer! It took a while, since the bird kept diving, but soon we got the scope on it and could see that it had the white patch on the back of its head and no white on its wings...it was a Surf Scoter! We also ended up finding another scoter nearby...also a Surf. Of course we were hoping for the more rare species in Idaho, a Black Scoter, but it was still a year bird for both of us, and a Heidi Lifer!!! My favorite thing about the scoters was the way that they dove....it's so different from what other water birds do! Also...the last lifer/yearbird had been all the way back on October 12, with the Black-bellied Plover...so of course I thought it was about time I got another one! heehee :)

We continued to check out the reservoir and enjoyed watching the very cute Horned and Eared Grebes, and then moved on to Blue Creek. We couldnt believe it when we came up over the rise adn saw TONS of white birds on the water! We ended up estimating that there were 800+ Tundra Swans there! Definitely a change from the 100's of Dowitchers and sandpipers that were there in previous weeks.

The 100's of Tundra Swans at Blue Creek!

We scoped all over the water, and saw tons of waterfowl, and a few Dunlin and Yellowlegs still hanging out...and of course we were checking all the mallards and canada geese to see if we could find a Black Duck or Brant hanging out with them :)
We didn't see anything else 'crazy', BUT, while scoping around, Jay spotted a falcon chasing around a flock of what looked like teal....and the falcon looked HUGE! It landed, and through the wind I tried to keep my binocs on it while Jay set up the scope....a shaky gust of wind came, and suddenly the Falcon was gone! :O NOOOOO! We never got the scope on it, and cant say for sure...but we were pretty sure it was a Gyrfalcon....sad day! Hopefully another Gyr will decide to visit Idaho this winter....and stay long enough for us to see it!

After that, we headed back to CJ Strike and scoped again over the water. There were still lots of Loons..and they were still all commons :) We took a look in the Russian Olives at the Jack's Creek area. Before heading into the trees, we were able to watch a female Sharp-shinned Hawk take out a Robin!! She sat on the road for quite a while with her catch, before taking off and skimming low over the grass with her huge meal!

In the fields and olive trees, we found TONS of sparrows!!! We couldn't believe how many popped up whenever we 'pished'! They were a White-crowns and Song Sparrows, but I'm sure these flocks will be a great place to check for rarities this winter!

In the Olives, we scouted around, and soon I saw the bird we were looking for: a Barn Owl! yay! This was one of the few species I had left to see this year that was NOT a lifer. We had split up on our search, so Jay missed the bird....for a few minutes then, I was caught up to him on the competition by one species! Unfortunately, we continued looking, and Jay soon found the owl perched in a thick bunch of branches....darn! :)

We finished the day with a grand total of 2 yearbirds! (the highest # we've had in a while) and headed for home after sunset...what a great day of birding!

This Saturday, our hope is to make it to Cascade Reservoir (a few hours drive from Boise) where we will hopefully find at least one new Loon species, and maybe a scoter too! We also are considering visiting Garden Valley, a town in Idaho where a Blue Jay was spotted a few weeks ago....

wish us luck!

~Heidi

Finally some Goshawks!

Although the numbers for most raptor species were way up in fall '09, there were very few Northern Goshawks migrating before the middle of October. After a low Goshawk year in '08 and a slow start in '09, I was starting to get restless about whether or not I was gonna get a chance to catch and band one this fall. During my 2 days/week of hawk-trapping, I had not even had a Goshawk come into the trapping station!

(Perhaps a slight explanation is needed: each fall, IBO conducts trapping and banding of migrating raptors in the Boise Foothills [at Lucky Peak and at Boise Peak] using an array of nets & traps. In this way, we usually capture & band between 800-1200 raptors per fall season - consisting mostly of Sharp-shinned & Coopers's hawks as well as American Kestrels. One of the coolest results of this long-term effort is the mapping of migration routes and eventual destinations of banded birds - see this map. For some examples of other catches, see the Merlin and Gyrfalcon links)

Then finally, on my last 2 days of hawk-trapping in '09 (Fri, Oct 23rd & Sat, Oct 24), I was fortunate enough to catch a Goshawk on each day and, therefore, got my fix.

My first Northern Goshawk of the season, a big female - photo by Michele Laskowski

Michele & Katie co-holding the first Goshawk they'd every seen! No, they aren't trying to start a fashion trend with the headlamps ;-) - it's just that it's a bit dark in the trapping blind where they were doing the banding & processing of this bird

A close-up to show the brownish eye color of this bird (usually more yellow - see below)

Now, Heidi wasn't there on Friday and so was a little envious .. and she demanded that I catch another one on Saturday when she was present. Lucky for me, the first bird to come into the trapping station was a Goshawk! It took a while to catch (very windy) but that gave us a great opportunity to watch this impressive raptor in action.

Heidi holding her first Goshawk of the season

Notice the more typical yellowish eye on this bird

Fieldwork is now done for the year so there'll be a lot of office/computer time in the near future but we hope to keep getting out on weekends and we're looking forward to helping out with some Christmas Bird Counts next month!

Jay

Wishlist for the rest of 2009 ;-)

As we head into the 2nd half of October, we've already far surpassed expectations. It's been a really fun year of birding & fieldwork - I mean, how could a year full of bird surveys for work and birding trips to almost all corners of the state not be fun!?! We've both seen more bird species than we realistically expected and Heidi's already seen 130 life birds!

I originally predicted a year-end total somewhere between 260 & 280 and now we stand at 290 and 293 with over 2 months to go! Our ability to exceed our own expectations is due to several factors:

1. the help & generosity of many other Idaho birders
2. conducting bird surveys across a broad spectrum of habitat types
3. (last but not least) a shred of craziness that drives us to bird as much as possible ;-)

Big Wood River riparian habitat, June 2009
(where we conducted bird surveys this summer ahead of habitat restoration efforts)

A skein of American White Pelicans over American Falls Reservoir, September 2009
(where we took a birding trip last month)

Our new goal is to both see at least 300 species in Idaho in 2009 and that means finding 10 more species for Heidi (actually, maybe 11 since the unique taxa known as the "South Hills" Crossbill - which we've both seen this year & hoped might be 'split' by now - is still considered to be conspecific with Red Crossbill). CAN WE DO IT? As we look ahead to the rest of 2009, here are some of the bird species that are regular in occurrence in Idaho (or at least somewhat regular; species in italics & parentheses are less likely) that we will be searching for:

• Pacific Loon (check!)
  
• Surf Scoter (check!)
• White-winged Scoter (check!)
• American Golden-plover
• Short-billed Dowitcher
• Barn Owl (check!)
• Pinyon Jay
• Western Scrub-jay
• Blue Jay
  
• Lapland Longspur
• (Black Scoter)
• (Red-shouldered Hawk)
• (Gyrfalcon)
• (Mountain Quail)
• (Western Gull)
• (Black-legged Kittiwake)
  

As you can see, it'll still be an uphill battle to reach 300. Much as I loathe to 'chase' introduced species, maybe Heidi'll hold a gun to my head & force me to look for one of the Gambel's Quail now established in the Salmon area (or maybe even make a big effort to find her a Gray Partridge ;-).

Of course, we're hoping we'll continue to get lucky with some out-of-range species (such as the Glossy Ibis, several rare warblers, and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks we've seen earlier in the year) so feel free to send us any tips on the above species or anything else that shows up!

Thanks & happy fall!

Jay

What we've mostly been up to for the last 3 months

Here are a few pictures to give a sense of the work we've been doing and fruits of our labor from the last few months up on Lucky Peak ...

The office @ Lucky Peak

A closer look @ Stephanie & Heidi entering some data on an
afternoon after songbird migration banding in August

Stephanie & Jay taking birds out of a mist-net (the method we use at IBO to capture landbirds during fall migration)

Least Flycatcher captured/banded on Sept 15

White-crowned Sparrows of two subspecies - Mountain (oreantha) on the left and Gambel's (gambeli) on the right

The first Indigo Bunting - an adult female - ever captured (or seen) @ Lucky Peak - on Sept 12

An adult female Cooper's Hawk we trapped (photo by Rob Miller)

Heidi holding a cute young male Townsend's Warbler (photo by Stephanie Coates)

Jay holding a male Wilson's Warbler (photo by Stephanie Coates)

Songbird crewmember, Nathan, with our 2nd ever White-breasted Nuthatch on his back!

Jay with an Adult male Sharpie on a stormy day of trapping!

The songbird crew (Stephanie, Jay, Caroline and Nathan) on a cold day in the hawk blind

Cheers,

Heidi & Jay

Blue Creek

with school and IBO work going full blast over the past few weeks, Jay and I haven't had much time to do any 'serious' birding...so, at the first chance we got we decided to make a 'quick' run to Duck Valley reservoir (only a few hours drive from Boise, heehee :) near the Nevada border.
Fellow crazy-birder Harry K. had first told Jay about this spot, and after seeing how great it was when we made a trip there 2 weeks ago, we knew we had to go back! We set out around lunchtime after finishing with songbird banding and Entomology lecture :)

When we first arrived, we checked out the reservoir itself and found a Common Loon among all the ducks there...too bad it wasn't a Yellow-Billed!

Next we drove to the Blue Creek area past the reservoir, and found two Cackling Geese (likely the minima subspecies) hanging out with all the Canada's...I'd never seen the uber-cute minima subspecies before, so that was a special treat; especially seeing them in comparison to their giant cousins!

One of the cute Cackling Geese!

We drove along the water and stopped to check out the gazillions of shorebirds along the way. We couldnt believe the numbers of birds, including both Yellowlegs, almost 70 Pectoral Sandpipers, around 275 LB Dowitchers, a few Sanderlings, and a Dunlin! We also got to enjoy watching a Peregrine Falcon chase around many shorebirds and ducks...though he didn't ever catch one.

While we were scoping out all the shorebirds (still hoping for a Short-billed Dowitcher) we suddenly heard a different call-note. A "Big Plover"!!!! We scanned around frantically to find out where the call had come from, and soon Jay spotted it! I checked it out with binoculars, while Jay set up the scope. A few seconds after I scoped it, it took off. oh no!.....but actually it was perfect timing, because in flight we were able to see it's very black 'armpits' and white rump. It was a Black-bellied Plover! woohoo! A lifer, yearbird, and the species we had come searching for on this trip! sweet :)

We used the remaining sunlight to check out the shorebirds coming in to roost for the night, and had fun hearing their fighter-jet 'whooshing' noises as they came shooting down across the water. As we got ready to leave, a lone White-faced Ibis flew slowly overhead to check us out before heading to his grassy island to sleep.

A cool day of birding at a very cool spot!

(Unsuccessful) parula stake-out

On Tuesday, Lew Ulrey (a Boise birder) saw & photographed a new warbler to him, an immature Northern Parula, in his backyard. Thus, instead of going looking for shorebirds (a regular activity of late), we decided to head to Lew's in the hopes that the bird would still be around on Wednesday pm ...

The songbird crew, including Stephanie, Caroline, Heidi, and Nathan (far right) hangin' with Lew (2nd from right) on his back porch

More chatting as we await the bird's arrival ....

As time wore on, enthusiasm diminished a bit & we settled in for the long haul ...

After 2+ hours, the ladies were getting ready for a nap and Lew was amused ;-)

We were not fortunate enough to see the bird on Wednesday and figured the bird had moved on .... until Lew saw it again on Thurs, his wife saw it Fri morning, and Lew saw it again early afternoon on Friday. As Heidi might say, "What?!? That's dumb!" but that's the way it goes sometimes when you 'chase' birds and we've been mostly very fortunate this year. We did end up spending another hour+ in Lew's yard on Friday late afternoon (along with Mark Collie) and, once again, no luck ... :-(. Who knows, maybe it'll stick around thru the weekend and give us another shot ...

Either way, a great find (and life bird!) for Lew . Though he's feeling badly that 'his' parula hasn't rewarded the visiting birders, he's been a great host and is a fun person to stand around waiting for a bird with ;-)

Crossing my fingers for the next year bird ....

Jay