Clark's Nutcracker

With the changing weather, we have had a change in our birds! Which is always exciting to see some new guys. We have a small flock (?) of Clark's Nutcrackers. These are not new to us, as we've seen them many times in Yellowstone and Teton Parks, almost yearly. They love our berry suet, and are loving the huge grasshoppers that are still hopping around. I was just reading about them and was amazed at what I read. I read that a Nutcracker can plant an entire forest in its lifetime. Because he hides so many seeds that he just doesn't need. Up to 33,000 per season! That is a lot of seeds! But I have to say that I am not all love for these guys. They have a very annoying call, and they drive our cat crazy!

Golden Eagle

On a recent road trip through the vast nothingness that is Wyoming, we came across a pair of Golden Eagles on the side of the road. We were pretty close to being in Central Wyoming, about twenty miles from Devil's Gate and north of Rawlins. We've recently read that they live mainly on rabbits, which I know there was a lot of 'em out there. Jake has also seen one along the Ririe highway in SouthEast Idaho. I think it's funny that we've seen these enormous birds, which are fairly rare, along busy highways. They are certainly a beautiful bird, and very large!

Buddies

We have moved. And since we've moved, we've lost a lot of our trees and landscape. Here's what our yard looks like now.



If you look really closely at this picture, just to the left of the arch, you can see what's left of Palisades Reservoir. In the spring, the water was so high, and now it's not. I guess that's the way things work.

With our move, comes new birds. We've seen the usual birds around here. But we've been seeing large flocks of Mountain Bluebirds. I've never seen this many anywhere! This morning there were probably a dozen! Very cool.


These guys have been hanging out with the Bluebirds. I couldn't decide which picture of the Yellow Rump to use. So I used all of them.




The variety(?) that I've been seeing is very light, with very few dark feathers.

I'm just wondering if these two species generally hang out together? They come in the same flock, and they leave in the same flock! With the dozen Bluebirds, there were at least the same number of Warblers. The sit very near each other on the fence line, adjacent fence posts, and near each other on the ground. Are they perhaps migrating together?

Either way, these are two fantastic birds, and I love having them visit us!

Caspian Tern

Last night we went for a little drive down to Palisades Reservoir. The water was so low! There were lots of geese, gulls, pelicans, and Grebes out. We also saw this funny little guy flying around. We haven't see a lot of terns, but we could see his forked tail. Looking closer at him, he had a freakishly large, and BRIGHT orange bill. He flew like a big swallow, very gracefully,with easy maneuvering. We watched him dive a couple of times coming up empty handed. He disappeared without any noms. What a cool new bird!

Cooper's Hawk

First, let me apologize for the images being rotated, Photoshop was being finicky and uncooperative.

We were sitting at the dinner table this evening when this young Coopers Hawk flew in. He landed on out old picnic table just off the back deck. We watched him for a second before we grabbed the camera.

He initially landed on the table looking towards the house. Transferring from both legs to one leg.



He saw something in the grass, and we thought he would jump down to get whatever it was.






He watched it for a few minutes, then hopped down.



He hung around for quite a while before flying next door. The rest of the little birdies in the neighborhood were very alarmed and concerned about this guy.

We thought he was sweet though!

Green-tailed Towhee

It has been a nice quiet summer with not a lot of bird action around the house. Tonight I glanced out the back window and saw a large finchish looking bird. After looking closer, I saw that it wasn't a finch at all, but a Towhee.


A Green-tailed Towhee! This is another new bird for us here in Wyoming.


His red cap was very distinctive, and his white chin was very lovely. It was a getting dark with the onset of a storm, so it was hard to see his green tail.


Wyoming has been wonderful for us!
Without going out too far, we have seen ten new lifers and many that we have gotten reacquainted with!

Edited- Great Horned Owls

We haven't been out very much in the last few weeks, due to the summer heat and the enormous amounts of mosquitoes!

But, last night when I was going to unplug the bug zapper, we heard this. After a little while we heard this. The unmistakable hoot of the Great Horned Owl! I just think it is one of the most beautiful sounds! I could listen to it forever.


After we went to bed, I could still hear them VERY close, and I wanted to see them. So I snuck out to the dining room window to peak to see if I could see them. A minute later, a young guy swooped in to land on one of our Shepard Hooks/Bird Feeders about fifteen feet from the house. It sat there for a few minutes watching the house. It almost felt like it was looking at me. Which was a little creepy, but so cool at the same time. I quickly got my camera and took a picture.


It didn't work, so I tried to cover the flash.


It obviously didn't work!

So I turned on the porch light and got a FANTASTIC view of him. So I ran into the bedroom to wake Jake up. But in the three seconds it took to wake him up, it was gone! I was so sad, because I really wanted Jake to see it!

So I went to bed. But I just wanted to watch them, and to listen to them. I could hear several of them throughout the neighborhood. So I grabbed my hoodie and snuck back out onto our back porch and just sat there for a while. I could hear them all around. There were at least three, possibly four, of them squawking from the rooftops. I had my binoculars, flashlight, and camera ready for the instant it came back to the Shepard's Hook. It never did. But I could clearly see a pair of them sitting on the peak of the house behind us. I shined the flashlight on them and watched them through the binoculars. It was so neat! There was two of them, and one of them was kind of trying to walk up and down the steep roof. You could hear his talons scraping the shingles. I tried to take their picture.


I tried to shine the light on them.


It didn't work, so I tried again.


I know they don't look like much, but they are all different, I promise!

I sat there for about an hour listening to them, and watching them fly. So cool! I could hear them on our roof, on the neighbor's roof, and way off in the distance. After I went to bed, I could still hear them. As one of them flew away, he flew around the house and I could hear it so clearly and close as it flew past different windows.
I really wish I could have gotten a good picture to share with you.

We probably would never have this in town in Idaho Falls. I love Wyoming!

P.S. Here is a feather I found this afternoon! How cool is that?

Rufous Hummingbird

I thought we had seen all of our hummingbirds, but we were surprised to see these guys here this morning. There have been at least three pairs around the house. I must admit, the Rufous is my favorite. I just think they are so pretty! I caught a pretty good glimpse of a female, and she had the prettiest marks. I really like their "rufousy" colors, they are so easy to spot against the green leaves. Are we going to have any more surprises from this fabulous group?

Black-chinned Hummingbird

We have finally spotted out last hummingbird. Here is the Black-chinned Hummingbird. We can tell the difference between them an the Broad-tailed by their hums. These guys have a deep hum versus the Broad-tailed, which is quite high. And the Calliope is quiet. Now how to tell the females? Not quite sure yet, but we are definitely working on it!

Yellowstone and Grand Teton- Harlequin Ducks

We spent the day in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. It was a beautiful day! There wasn't a lot of people, and lots of birds and animals out.


We saw a wolf dragging an Elk carcass out of the water. We still don't have a really good camera, so I took a picture through our spotting scope. Not so bad, huh?


This is us at Jenny Lake with our camera on a timer. It had warmed up nicely and we didn't need a jacket. Sorry about getting half the rock in the picture.


But the highlight of our trip, and one of the main purposes, was to see these guys. Can you see them? Squint really close. He's sitting on top of that rock in the middle of the river.


That's a Harlequin Duck! We saw a news story about them still being in the Yellowstone. Normally they leave pretty early, but they were there a few extra weeks this year. So we wanted to see them. Here we are moments after seeing our new bird. Don't we look so happy!

Here is a picture from Google, so I know what we saw! We love the parks!

Oranges

When I first started putting the oranges out, we had several pairs of Bullock's Orioles coming in to them. We've since had several pairs of Western Tanagers on them. I'm not sure if the Orioles have migrated somewhere else, or if the Tanagers have taken over. But they sure love the oranges. I thought it was interesting, because they scarf just about every last bit down! There isn't any pulp left when they're done! Here's our pictures:



Kinda cool!

Exploring

We are now up to two Hummingbirds here at our house. We busted several Calliope Hummingbirds here at our feeder. They and the Broad-tailed Hummers buzz each other all of the time. We love watching them!


We've also had a Downy Woodpecker hanging around the last couple of days.



We spent this evening exploring the opposite side of Alpine, where we hadn't been before. We were going down a muddy road, and came across several Killdeer. Normally, they aren't something we usually stop for. But this was a special occasion. This little gal had four little chicks! Oh my goodness, I wish I had had the camera! SO cute! As we got closer, she called to them, and they all huddled up under her. I'm not sure where they all got found the room! They weren't brand new, just little mini-hers. So here is a Googled image to give you a visual.


The big score of the evening was the Common Loon. We heard it at first and knew what it was. So we turned toward the water in search of him. We found him, and another. We've seen several of these guys all around (Yellowstone, Horseshoe Lake, even the Snake River in down town Idaho Falls), but they don't get old, that's for sure!


An interesting thing I thought would be cool to share is that while we were looking at the Loon through the binoculars, you could see our house just across the river, in the same view. I LOVE living here!

Another Exciting Day!

We have had another eventful couple of days! I think the reason we are seeing more than we saw in Idaho Falls is because we actually live where we used to drive half hour to get to! So here is what we've seen in the last 36 hours.

Several Lazuli Buntings hanging around our neighbor's worms. They are so pretty! I love just watching them!


Western Tanagers have started arriving! These are not that rare around here. In fact last year, I think their migration was delayed because of the constant June rain. Everyone in our neighborhood kept asking us what these yellow and orange birds were. And they're here now!


On a drive up into the Bridger National Forest last night, we came across several Townsend's Solitaires.

Jake also spotted an American Dipper on the other side of the river. I don't know how he saw it, but it stopped and paused for us so we could get a great view of him!


We have seen all of these several times before. But in the last 24 hours, we've seen three new birds!


The Veery was hopping along the road, just across the street from the house. Pretty sure we've heard them before, just never seen them. What a cute little guy!


On our drive last night, Jake spotted the Ruffed Grouse sitting on the side of the dirt road. I've never actually seen this guy, but we've heard/felt it. That's what I think is the coolest things about these guys. You can feel it before you see it. Pretty cool!


This morning I was looking out the window and saw a flash of yellow. I called to Jake to come and bring his binoculars. I couldn't see it anymore, and I don't think he believed me that I saw something. We had to stand on the couch and open the blinds all of the way. But we saw the Bobolink! Four of them in fact. Whenever we see a bird we don't know what it is, we always say it's a Bobolink (in a melodic warble). I have mixed feelings about finally seeing it, because now what are we going to say?

We're going to go for a drive in a few minutes to see what else we can see! Yay for birds!

Sora

I'm in Jackson again today, at the Visitor's Center I've mentioned earlier. Earlier this morning, I saw some suspicious movement out of the corner of my eye, but was not quick enough to see what it was. During lunch, I took Jake back and we wandered around for a few minutes before we heard this call (Sorry, I tried to link it up, but this is the page its on).


We have only seen the Sora two other times. Once at Camas WR in Hamer, ID, and once at Bear River in Utah. We had never heard the call, and sort of felt like something was screaming at us! Well, we hung out searching the reeds for movement of any kind. We finally got lucky as we saw him pass from clump to clump. We saw him several other times in the same minute. I've got to tell you, he was FAST! Unless there was four or five in there timing there movements to throw us off. I wouldn't be surprised.

We always joke that the magpie or robin is rare and elusive, mostly because, they really aren't. Not even a little bit. These guys are our elusive guys. Next for us is a Rail. We've never seen one! I'm slightly jealous of all the wonderful birders out there who know exactly where to go for that one specific bird. We are learning though!

A BUSY Morning!

Already this morning, we have seen lots of birds in our yard!

A pair of Yellow-rumped Warblers paused for about a minute. I was lucky to catch a picture of them. Not good enough to post here, but good enough to show Jake when he gets home!



A pair of Western Bluebirds has been in and out all morning. The female is much more yellow than I expected. This is a new bird for us!



I caught a glimpse of a chipping sparrow. He bumped the window, and paused in the tree for a moment. I wouldn't have seen him if he hadn't stopped for a minute.


A White-crowned Sparrow stopped in for a minute. He'll be back.



A Black-headed Grosbeak tried out our feeders but didn't find them to his liking so he went to the neighbor's. I think he has worms. For the birds that is.



We also have many Broad-tailed Hummingbirds coming around. We can hear them before we see them. Sometimes they get close, and you duck out of instinct because you think you're going to get buzzed! This is also a new bird for us!



Along with all of these we have our usual ten American Goldfinches, Pine Siskins out the wazoo, Cassin's Finches, House Finches, Brewer's Blackbirds, Robins, Bullock's Orioles and a couple Red-winged Blackbirds! What a busy morning!