A Say's Phoebe was at Snake River Correctional Institute about 3pm
Sunday, 2-14. I hadn't seen any other eastside reports. SRCI is high enough
above the Snake River to be significantly colder. There was a continuous snow
cover on the fields there 2-13, and the biggest palest Horned Lark I've ever
seen feeding on the snow. No snow what so ever on the banks of the Snake, Some
Wood Ducks at the mouth of Payette River, that's the Idaho shore. One adult
Herring Gull at the Payette Bridge, the first gull I've seen in Malheur County
this winter. Many score Common Goldeneye on the river, not a single Barrow's,
and I checked every one. Some squealing geese flew over in the fog. My personal
inclination would be to call them White-fronts, but I don't know what a Snow
Goose sounds like.
It occurs to me that the Eurasian Goldeneye has been split from the
American species. Or is that the BOU but not the AOU? It makes me want to write
"American Goldeneye", as it appears in several books I own that are older than
I am. The Ontario area is around 2500 feet, so the mildness of conditions
surprises me. Green, growing fennel down at ankle height along the Snake and
some kind of mustard as well seems to have come through the winter alive. But
no Yellow-rumped Warblers , and no kinglets since December. White-crowned
Sparrows are very abundant, hundreds detectable in any given hour and a few
miles of driving. But House Sparrows are equally abundant and I wonder if they
are migrants from further north. There are hundreds to be detected in the
course an hour of semi-purposeful cruising the sub-rural light residential
landscape that typifies the Oregon landscape across from Payette. No other
species of Zono yet in any of these flocks. I predict Golden-crowned would be
harder to find in Ontario than Harris', and White-throated too maybe.
No shrikes, it just occurs to me. i would expect them more abundant than
in the Willamette Valley. Juncos are present in similar numbers to the westside
and look the same--classic "Oregon" juncos. Robins were widespread, single
birds only. Lars POST: Send your post to obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
JOIN OR QUIT: //www.freelists.org/list/obol
OBOL archives: www.freelists.org/archive/obol
Contact moderator: obol-moderators@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
