February 2025

Jan 26 – Wow – What an incredible day. Suddenly 6.6 hours later we had over 110 raptors identified. We were amazed at how many Golden Eagles we saw. One pair was occupying a nest that had previously been home to Bald Eagles. Another pair occupied a nest that might have fit Swainson’s Hawks. Bald Eagles – when we saw bunches they were mostly those that had “not quite white” heads. This is the most red-tails we have seen this winter. Their morphs ran the whole gamut – almost black to very white, dark tail to red tail. It made identification challenging at distances – when they were just a blob on a tree. I don’t know what was more thrilling – the TWO Ferruginous Hawks or the group of THREE Short-eared Owls. We got pictures of all of them. Thanks to driver Steve and spotters – Steve, Richard and Andrew. // Take a look at our numbers – hard to believe. – Beth Hill

https://ebird.org/tripreport/324375

Jan 26 – Had a covey of Sharp-tailed Grouse sitting on the fence along the road. – Richard Mousel.

Jan 26 – Home and River –  This sharpshin was in neighbor’s tree this morning.  Seems to have terrorized our birds,,, feeder deserted for days on end and have seen this critter fairly often lately.  Red eyes of adult bird are pretty cool looking. Made a quick stop below Gt Springs yesterday afternoon.  Quite a variety of waterfowl there as they don’t have a lot of places to hang out at the moment.  Saw quite a few redheads, a canvasback, lots mallards, geese, coots, hooded and common merganser, some buffles and goldeneyes,  scaup, a pied billed grebe and prob a few other species out of range of binos. – Steve Leathe

Jan 22 – Common Redpolls – Dave Shea reported seeing his first Redpolls of the winter today. There were 2 males feeding among his other “little brown birds”. He wondered if anyone else had seen Redpolls.

Jan 22 – Black Pheasant – I saw the black (melanistic) pheasant again.  It was standing next to a colorful pheasant before I could get my camera out (and change batteries).  It wasn’t lighting or my imagination.  It is black and looks like it has the red rooster cheek leather.  Apparently it is a mutation that showed up in Europe over 100 years ago and there are game farms that raise them.  Some certainly escape, it may also be a naturally occurring mutation that pops up.  I also read about some even less common leucistic pheasants.  – Beth Hill

Jan 22 –  Robins – 5 robins at top of one of the giant spruces in the neighborhood this morning,,,  looking south – Steve Leathe

Jan 18 – Western Grebes – Last week there were 2 Western Grebes below GS before the railway bridge same day I saw the one from the parking lot next to the electric coop. Same day there was one lone M American Wigeon. Below GS there were 3 im Bald Eagles 🦅 and 1 Raven who were putting on a great show of flying skills. – Arla Eckert

Jan 17 –  A Western Grebe – I did some quick birding above Central Ave bridge this morning (walked along the River’s Edge Trail).  I was looking for a repeat of the Long-tailed Duck that I saw a week ago mixed in with the hundreds of Common Goldeneye.  There weren’t nearly as many goldeneys of either species this morning but there was one tucked up Western Grebe floating mid-river.  Not too common at this point in the winter. One dying goose.  One Bald Eagle looking around for victims. There will be a lot more ice forming in the next 24 hours so maybe the waterfowl will be more concentrated then. – Beth Hill

Jan 15 – River Birds – Made quick stop on riverbank just upstream from Central Ave bridge.  Two adult bald eagles feeding.  Saw one of them dive in river, catch a coot (or remnants of one…) float a ways then lift off and land on ice floe for lunch.  Other adult bald was feeding on something across river.  A few goldeneyes, lots of mallards, a dozen or so hooded mergansers and one western grebe.  Also had a merlin zoom up the river.  Not bad for a 15min stop right in the middle of town…. – Steve Leathe

Jan 14 – Screech Owl – I heard from a good friend this afternoon that he found a grey screech owl in his pigeon loft today.  It was caught and released without harm.  It was the first he had seen on  his property.

I always thought there should be some out there near Sun River. – Beth Hill

Jan 14 – Sharp Invasion – It got even better this morning.  There was an adult AND a juvenile sharpie about 10 ft apart in same tree as yesterday.  I’m not a good enough photographer to get both in focus at same time but here are some pics.  Semi-vertical mottled brown breast and white eye stripe on juvenile makes it easy to confuse with merlin.  But as Beth said a while back, the yellow eye on juvenile sharp is diagnostic because all merlins apparently have very dark eyes.  Also note the short wings on both of these sharps… coming only to 2nd bar above the tail band, more or less…  There is quite a difference in coloration of adult vs juvenile sharpies….     Was nice of them to pose in good light.  Now if only a merlin had joined them….   Maybe tomorrow….? Our feeder birds have moved on, for good reason. – Steve Leathe

Jan 14 – Merlins – I am finding it very interesting how many Merlins we are seeing. The first bird of the New Year I saw was one in my yard. Then yesterday I had a F Merlin in the yard followed by a Male down by the river. Last fall in the northwestern part of our state I watched one chasing dragon flys over a fishing pond then a few days later heard chickadees calling big time then a Merlin was very loudly calling. I used the program Merlin to IDed who was making all that racket. This was many miles away from the fishing pond. It seems like they must have had a very good nesting year or they have moved in from another area big time. In years past they were a hard bird to find and I seemed to only find females. – Arla Eckert

Jan 13 – Shrike – We have had a shrike haunting the feeder area for a couple of days.  Haven’t seen it catch anything but have found feather evidence, probably a Rosy-finch.  Sure wish they were House Sparrow specialists! The Shrike that has been haunting our feeders is currently dining on a House Sparrow.  Way to go Shrike! – Kitty Knaphus

Jan 13 – Sharp-Shinned hawk – Our sharp-shinned hawk has been catching the desirable birds – first the 2 Harris Sparrows, then the White-throated Sparrow, next were a couple of chickadees.  Wish it would concentrate on the house sparrows. They should be easy when there are 50-60 of them at times. – Beth Hill

Jan 9 – City Raptorfest – Was just walking out to back garage to get some lumber for home repairs and unexpectedly had one of the best backyard raptor festivals since the big group of Swainson’s roosted in our neighborhood back in Sept. // First, ‘our’ sharpshin was sitting very tamely about 75 ft away in neighbors tree.  It was so tame it let me go get camera and take pics.  Here’s the cool part.  While standing in back doorway I also saw another small raptor perched at very top of a giant spruce tree about 200 yds away.  It also cooperated perfectly, enough to let me run inside and get the spotting scope and set it up.  Got a great view of the bird, an adult merlin, and watched it scan for prey for about 10 minutes.  The merlins in our neighborhood love to perch at top of tallest spruce and scan all across town for prey.  I did not realize they can easily swivel their heads a full 180 degrees, or maybe a little more.  In that way they can pretty much scan 360 without moving their bodies.  It was constantly whipping its head around. // Basically I was able to see the two species almost side-by-side.  Can’t remember ever being able to do that before and is quite a luxury,,,, makes ID a lot easier.

Jan 9 – Buffalo Jump – We visited the buffalo jump this morning (from the parking area on the Ulm-Vaughn Rd).  There wasn’t much going on – the first birds we saw were a few pigeons, then  4 ravens flew over and a harrier was swooping around below us.  As we made our way back to the parking area we saw some motion – it was a flock of 100 or so horned larks and among them we could see at least 12 snow buntings.  (we looked for them Tuesday when we did the raptor survey in this area – no luck).  As we drove back a nice looking roughie perched on some fence posts and power poles for us. // There were just 3 prairie dog holes that had some activity that we saw.  It made it VERY quiet out there.  Lots of drifts to post-hole through, some crust was sturdy enough to walk on top. – Beth H

Jan 8 – Successful Sharp-shinned hawk – Seems everyone but me seeing sharpshins  around their feeders and I’ve been feeling a little left out. Just happened to look out the back window a few minutes ago and a small accipiter was flying slowly against the wind with a small bird (prob sparrow or finch) in its talons while very big snowflakes were falling. Luckily it landed in neighbors spruce trees to eat his lunch. – Steve Leathe

January 7 – Winter Raptor Survey: West Route – An interesting day. Large temperature fluctuations all morning. Started at 20 degrees at the Market Place, down to 11 on the airport bench, up to 18 then down to plus 2 at Ulm, 4-21 degrees while driving Luebbe Rd. The rest of the day was 18-24 degrees until we arrived back at Market Place – it was 33 degrees. Wow. Although it was clear, there was patchy, low lying fog until after 9:30 am. Although we only saw 14 Rough-legged Hawks (last month there were 34) they were concentrated in the same areas. We once again saw a Prairie Falcon near the buffalo jump. We had 4 Red-tailed Hawks this month (last month – none). They were all “black and white” type, one could almost have been called a Krider’s and another a Harlan’s, one was a puzzler until we saw a red tail. It almost looked like a Rough-legged except: it was perched in a dense Russian Olive, the wing tips did not extend past the tail and had the red tail, it flew away and perched 1/2 mile away. Steve saw the tail when it took off again. We saw 3 of the 4 red-tails in one area off McIver Rd. There was a group of at least 55 antelope in fields off Collins Rd. Another area we saw over 300 Horned Larks together early in the morning. A Northern Harrier that flew over just re-arranged the group. We had a sighting of side-by-side Golden Eagles, when they took off a pair of Bald Eagles and several ravens took off. We looked for a carcass, but it was below a hill out of sight. Glad we had a truck for driving the snowy roads, many plowed, all were well driven.   Thanks Steve for driving. – Beth Hill

https://ebird.org/tripreport/317866

Jan 6 – Hawks – Over the last couple of days we’ve had a Hawk or two show up every day, today it’s a Sharp-shinned Hawk, usually it’s been the larger Coopers. The Sharp-shinned is sitting patiently all puffed up watching while the Chickadees continue to feed, I’m guessing that the Chickadees are throwing a fit warning others about the danger. I hope it leaves the natives alone. There is currently about 10 Chickadees in the hedge. The Sharp-shinned is perched 10 ft from a couple of feeders. – Richard Mousel

Jan 04 – 10 Mile Road –  Birds around our place in the last two days.  4 Bald Eagles, lots of ravens and magpies on a carcass just across the road, 3 Harriers, 1 Rough-leg, 50 Huns, 36 Sharp-tails, 260 Gray-crowned Rosy Finches, 1 BC Chickadee, 1 Downy, 33 House Finches , 10 House Sparrows. // With the cold and snow, we have had to refill feeders and trays several times during the day to keep everyone fed! // The Harriers and Rough-leg keep returning to try for a Hun or Sharp-tail.  Haven’t walked the windbreaks since the snow to check for feathers, so I don’t know how successful they have been. // Thursday on the way into town we saw some huge Horned Lark flocks. –  Kitty Knaphus

Jan 04 – Hairy – We have a Hairy Woodpecker again. We usually have at least a pair of Downy Woodpeckers. – Richard Mousel