Idaho Day 4: Twitching for Sage Grouse

FRIDAY, AUGUST 4:

Still LOTS of catch-up to do, between editing photos and preparing music for upcoming projects, I haven’t even had time to write these posts on the plane like I usually do so it has been very slow-going preparing these photo-heavy posts, as are typical from my jam-packed productive birding days in Idaho!

And this day was no exception! Read on for more.

The day’s sightings started even before Poo and I pulled up to Kathleen’s house when this male CALIFORNIA QUAIL blocked our way in the road, hah!

RUFOUS HUMMINGBIRDS proliferated at Kathleen’s feeders:

And soon, we were off! Our goal today was to hit Rinker Rock Creek Ranch and a few other nearby sagebrush steppe areas in hopes of flushing the random Greater Sage-Grouse, a bird for which I have now been searching ten years! As usual, VESPER SPARROWS were abundant along the sagacious route:

As well as SAGE THRASHERS:

Our day started off with some gorgeous views.

We had a large flock of perching CLIFF with this one VIOLET-GREEN SWALLOW mixed in:

And a BANK:

WESTERN WOOD-PEWEE:

BULLOCK’S ORIOLE:

AMERICAN KESTRELS were abundant:

Then, I spotted a small, different-looking sparrow that seemed to be hunched over on top of a sagebrush. Sure enough, it turned out to be GRASSHOPPER SPARROW, a rare breeder for the area, carrying food for nestlings, which is evidence of breeding! I believe this is my first or second visual GRSP ever seen in idaho!

After moving on for not even five minutes through the sagebrush, our car flushed a large, flapping grouse out of the ditch and Poo and I shouted “SAGE GROUSE!” at exactly the same time!!! Kathleen slammed on the brakes but not before I whipped open the door, jumped out, and snapped photos of it flying over the sagebrush steppe.

You can even see its diagnostic black belly! Yep, a second day in a row, a second nemesis conquered!

Aweeeeee-some!!!! Lifer #1171.

Rejoicing after the lifer!!!

Our next stop was at the north end of the Magic Reservoir where we had a brief, distant flyby PRAIRIE FALCON:

RED-TAILED HAWK:

NORTHERN HARRIER:

TURKEY VULTURE. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - one of my favorite parts of central Idaho birding is that it has the greatest density of breeding raptors in the WORLD. Yes. The entire world.

Female NORTHERN FLICKER appearing to pant even though it wasn’t nearly hot by Idaho standards.

GRAY FLYCATCHER is always nice:

We soon ended up seeing over a dozen LOGGERHEAD SHRIKES which was rather unprecedented as this is an expected desert breeding bird, but not in such high numbers! It was so cool to see so many of Poo’s spark bird.

Superficially-similar EASTERN KINGBIRD:

WESTERN GREBES including this pale one, perhaps a juvenile, or maybe even a hybrid with a Clark’s? Grebe experts, how’s your time to help a birder out.

Cute family of COMMON MERGANSERS:

Juvenile HORNED LARK along Magic Desert Road was really cool:

We also flushed a SECOND Greater Sage-Grouse which was crazy, and possibly due to the extensive amount of die-out we saw of the sage near this road, as this bird was hunkered down in one of the few remaining live patches. Awesome to get a second of this lifer species for me, abut unfortunate given the degraded habitat.

The Grouse unfortunately went unphotographed, but closer again to Magic Reservoir (the west side this time), we had a covey of CALIFORNIA QUAIL:

A really obliging pair of ROCK WREN:

And my F.O.Y. SAY’S PHOEBE, awesome!

VESPER SPARROW was nice to pick up:

And a pair of SWAINSON’S HAWKS right in the center of the town of West Magic, including this juvenile:

And the pair of adults:

Waterbirds were present on the reservoir, though not quite in the numbers we were hoping for. EARED GREBE family:

There were high numbers of this species around:

Flyover WHITE-FACED IBIS in the distance:

More Grebes:

Flyby Yellowlegs sp. with WILLETS (the ones with flashy black and white wings):

CALIFORNIA (darker-mantled) and RING-BILLED (lighter-mantled) GULLS:

Poo spotted this PIED-BILLED GREBE:

There were many flocks of NORTHERN SHOVELERS:

Alternate-plumage FORSTER’S TERN:

More shovelers:

Distant AMERICAN WHITE PELICAN with the shovelers:

Another family of COMMON MERGANSERS:

Breeding-plumage COMMON LOON:

And the final bird photo of the day was this beautiful male AMERICAN GOLDFINCH on the sunflowers on our drive out of Magic:

The aforementioned sunflowers on the way out, as well as an intense storm that later pelted the area with rain, thunder, and flooding. Wow!

Bird-of-the-day of course goes to my life bird Greater Sage-Grouse, with runner-up to all the Loggerhead Shrikes we found: twenty-four in total by the end of the day!!!!

It was a fantastic day capped off by a wonderful Symphony concert that Poo, Kathleen, and I watched while my mom slayed some Ginastera. Brava!

It seemed like I had brought the Switzerland weather with me, as the mountains were wrapped in a gorgeous fog — a weather pattern that is very un-Idaho in august. It was beautiful and we all admired it post-concert!

Happy birding,
Henry
World Life List: 1171 Species (1 life bird today: Greater Sage-Grouse)