01-31-14 Bird Field Note

01-31-14 Bird Field Note

January 31, 2014

Kate Stone's Field Note shares updates on shrubby draw surveys, winter point counts, and raptor surveys.

Bird Field Note Kate Stone 1/31/14

American Tree Sparrows continued to dominate shrubby draw surveys. Though flocks spend a lot of time chattering with each other, they often forage in silence.

The most vegetated areas of Sheep Camp and Tongue Creek saw heavy bird use in both months. Areas along Tongue Creek that lacked tree cover but had dense bitterbrush (circled in green) attracted American Tree Sparrows.

This pile of barbed wire in the Partridge Alley dump hosted a flock of House Sparrows and a single Song Sparrow. During our draw surveys, Jeff and Mike removed the pile to tidy the dump area. The sparrows promptly moved to a newly stacked pile of wooden pallets.

pallets. Sheets of ice coated the bottom and sides of the draws, making for treacherous surveys.

This year we are focusing winter point counts on the low-elevation areas undergoing major restoration treatments. We will visit these locations three times over the winter to look at how use changes through the season. Right now the abundance of bare ground and scattered seed attracts flocks of Horned Larks, with a few Snow Buntings and Lapland Longspurs mixed in.

Small mammals also like winter wheat seed. Melting snow exposed this cache, likely hidden by a deer mouse.

mouse. A Northern Shrike watches the flocks of smaller birds, waiting for a meal opportunity. Debbie picked up her first Northern Shrike recording this week.

week. Though we have yet to see any flocks of Common Redpolls or Grey-crowned Rosy-finches, huge groups of Bohemian Waxwings move about the floodplain. We detected only a few Cedar Waxwings mixed in.

in. Waxwings gather at the river’s edge to take small sips of water. Warm weather has prompted several insect hatches, offering the waxwings fly-catching opportunities.

Thousands of Mallards gather in the corn stubble. Northern Harriers, Prairie Falcons, and Merlins continue to hunt over this field.

A dark Rough-legged Hawk gets a different perspective on a roadside rodent.

A pair of Bald Eagles sit together on the floodplain.

This Bald Eagle sat in the front yard of a private residence and appeared injured. When we returned 20 minutes later to capture it, we could not find it. Hopefully the injury was minor.