First week of field work

What a week! Started with staying up until 4am with Matt on Sunday night/Monday morning mapping survey sites for Flammulated Owls and then we headed off to the Owyhees on Monday afternoon to start owl surveys at 940pm that night ... Friday night was my first night getting to bed before 3am all week! BUT, the owl surveys have been really fun (over 50 individual Flammulated Owls detected on 4 nights of surveys b/t the Owyhees, South Hills, and Black Pine Mountains) and the birding along the way just as great.

Matt, Jack, & Heidi after finishing our last paperwork detail (or so we thought ;-) before heading to Juniper Mountain (Owyhees) on Monday afternoon

A few highlights from the week (5-18 to 5-23):

• Juniper Mountain (Owyhees) on Monday: Flammulated Owl, Common Poorwill, Olive-sided Flycatcher, and Western Wood-pewee
• N Fork of Owyhee River campground on Tuesday: Yellow-breasted Chat, Ash-throated Flycatcher, Plumbeous Vireo
• South Hills (Diamondfield Jack & upper Rock Creek Rd) on Thurs: 'South Hills' Crossbills, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Fox Sparrow, Broad-tailed Hummingbird (heard only), Northern Goshawk adult, Williamson's Sapsucker pair, & more
• Hayfield N of Marion/Oakley (in hayfield on W side of 600 W between 900 S & 1000 S): 6 male Bobolinks!!!
• Black Pine Mountains (Pole Canyon Rd) on Friday: Virginia's Warbler, Broad-tailed Hummingbird (great views of displaying & perched male), Plumbeous Vireo, & much more
• Sun Valley Ranch on Saturday: Rose-breasted Grosbeak female, Least Flycatcher (6 singing males!!), Gray Catbird, Eastern Kingbirds (1st of spring), Swainson's Thrush, Pileated Woodpecker, Bobolink
• Centennial Marsh on Saturday afternoon: 25+ Black Terns
  

A female Rose-breasted Grosbeak seen on a bird survey (photo by Jack Stenger)

A close Black Tern at Centennial Marsh (photo by Jack Stenger)

I can't remember what I'd done here ;-) (photo by Jack Stenger)

Many of these birds were lifers for Heidi and year birds for both of us....

The view from Juniper Mountain north towards South Mountain and the Silver City Range

It was a busy but really fun week (finally in the field after all the planning/prep work for the last few months) with a fun crew .... home to re-charge for a day before some more adventures!!!

Cheers,

Jay