Idaho Day 4: Bird banding and birding our way back!

THURSDAY, AUGUST 12:

Nubs, Poo, Kathleen, and I awoke bright and early to make the long early morning drive over to Lucky Peak near Boise, Idaho today. Kathleen and Poo have wanted to take me bird-banding here for years and today we finally made it happen! After a long, windy, treacherous journey up quite possibly the worst dirt road I have ever experienced, we arrived to the summit of the peak by 10am!

Our first sighting along the trail to the banding station was this juvenile Snowshoe Hare — we were stumped as to the species at first, but a later Google search revealed the slightly larger, darker ears to be a good match for this species in the summer.

This MACGILLIVRAY’S WARBLER in one of the thickets was quite nice to see. The top of Lucky Peak is covered in interspersed conifer forest and willow thickets, a change from the desert below, and therefore serves as an important migrant trap. That is part of the reason why the Intermountain Bird Observatory runs such a successful banding operation up there.

Banding itself was quite fun as the researchers would take the birds’ measurements and dutifully record them, and then anyone could release them! The researches would gently place the bird in our hand and sometimes the bird was off in a flash, while sometimes it took a gentle prod to the rear to get ‘em going. Here is a YELLOW WARBLER:

Immature BREWER’S SPARROW:

And a WARBLING VIREO:

Bird banding was awesome!!! It is so cool to feel the birds push off from your hands when they realize they are free.

This Western Fence Lizard, a lifer for me, entertained us by doing “push-ups” on his stick on the bush pile nearby.

After banding ceased by about 1pm, Poo, Nubs, Kathleen and I kept on birding the summit area. Here is a female WESTERN TANAGER with a berry:

A beautiful TOWNSEND’S WARBLER, a year bird for us all!

This NASHVILLE WARBLER was also a great find.

As we were hiking, I spotted a snake sunning right next to the trail, and after double checking to make sure it wasn’t a Rattler, I gently picked up one of the most docile snakes I have ever encountered: my lifer Gophersnake! Specifically, this is a Great Basin Gophersnake. Same species, different subspecies than the Kankakee Bulls back home. It proceeded to wrap tightly around my arm but didn’t even try to strike.

Awesome! Then, we drove the crazy dirt road back downslope (thanks Nubs!) and stopped for lunch at a nearby state park. It wasn’t without its birds, of course, and a bit of post-lunch birding yielded an extremely high-quality bird species for Idaho: a BEWICK’S WREN! This was an Idaho lifer for a number of us, including me. So cool!

Our next stop was the Shakespeare Festival Grounds in Boise which have a pretty greenway area next to the Boise River. Here is a WESTERN WOOD-PEWEE:

Immature BALD EAGLE:

WOOD DUCKS in eclipse plumage, an Idaho lifer for me surprisingly:

A delightful covey of CALIFORNIA QUAIL with a Squirrel!

Next, we hit a few stops on the way back to the Valley. Indian Creek Reservoir looked like a proper Saharan watering hole with not only birds visiting, but Pronghorn!

A sweet array of shorebirds: mainly WESTERN and a few BAIRD’S SANDPIPERS with a lone, striking WILSON’S PHALAROPE.

One of the Baird’s:

And the beautiful Phalarope!

Westerns:

Everybody is thirsty in this horrible drought — this WESTERN MEADOWLARK came down to the fluddle as well.

And a very raggedy-looking first year CALIFORNIA GULL:

A number of swallows flew over including four BANK and one CLIFF (top bird):

PECTORAL SANDPIPER:

Next stop: Mountain Home Reservoir. Here are some eclipse-plumage AMERICAN WIGEON (larger birds) with Teal sp (probably Green-winged or Cinnamon):

We birded Rock Creek Road on the way home. There were a few fluddles dammed up by beavers, and this one had a CINNAMON TEAL in it:

Immature-type MOUNTAIN BLUEBIRD:

Mule Deer:

The rocky views along this road were very impressive.

BANK SWALLOW:

TREE SWALLOW:

EASTERN KINGBIRD:

ROCK WREN:

LARK SPARROW:

We were lucky enough to have Poo spot an American Beaver near some absolutely gigantic dams he had constructed.

WILLOW FLYCATCHER with that bulky head and conspicuous wing-bars:

BREWER’S SPARROWS:

After turning back onto Highway 20, we spotted an agricultural pond that looked like it had birds around it. Well, we were lucky enough to find a perched PRAIRIE FALCON! Definitely one of my favorite western raptors as they are uncommon enough to always be a real treat to see.

And the most stupid RUDDY DUCKS in the world were perched on the edge of the pond just a couple meters away from the falcon. What the hell?! Easy dinner for the falcon.

Then, after that as we were cruising along, we spotted a bunch of large birds in a farm field that looked kind of like grouse since at least one had a white chest. So, we had to turn the car around, BUT while we were doing that I noticed a smallish, brown owl flush up from the grass behind us, and I yelled, “BURROWING OWL!” Sure enough, we ended up flushing not one, two, three, or four, but FIVE Burrowing Owls from the nearby grasses! A super surprise for everyone and an Idaho life bird for me! Absolutely incredible and by far our favorite part of the day.

A few of them landed a ways away in some lighter grasses. These look like immatures — it was definitely a family group we accidentally flushed.

So then we turned around to head back to the field full of birds and to our surprise they were not grouse, but hawks! Specifically, a field full of 26 SWAINSON’S and even 2 FERRUGINOUS HAWKS! Wowie! Here are some dark morph Swainson’s:

And a gorgeous Ferruginous, my favorite hawk out here!

It was a beautiful sight as the hazy sun was setting. We guessed these guys were staging for their upcoming migration.

And as we are leaving the area, I hollered for Nubs to stop the car again as there was a cute BURROWING OWL in plain sight right along the highway next to its burrow. Dang!

We ended the day with two unphotographed GREAT HORNED OWLS along the road back to Sun Valley, rounding out a solid day of 85 bird species! Bird-of-the-day to the Burrowing Owls with runner-up to the Bewick’s Wren, both of which were Idaho lifers for me today.

Good birding,
Henry
World Life List: 1126 Species