[TopOfUtah] Cache County Cackling Goose, Merlin, etc.

[Jason Pietrzak]

Nice work on the Cackling... I was hoping to see one myself but we
didn't have a chance to check out too many geese... Unfortunately, the
week looks like more smog so that's not great for birding but then
again, I might take Tuesday and go bird around the valley. I have
always felt that that gives the birds enough time to relax from the
high weekend traffic but in Cache Valley maybe not so much.

FYI - the Greater Scaups were almost the last thing Reinhard and I saw
(and he didn't see them well enough to make a call either way). You
know that place where you drive/walk down that short road to the
backside of 20-20? From there I saw several Scaup together and called
1 to be a Greater. She was at great distance, though, and disappeared
from view seconds later. We went back to the main turnoff area and
scoped and happened across a pair together, although the main species
there had to be Gadwall or Canvasback. Not many Scaup.

Looks like your pictures are coming along well too!

Jason


On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 7:01 PM, Ryan O'Donnell <ryan at biology.usu.edu> wrote:
> I birded around several locations in Cache County today.  The best
> sighting of the day was on my way out the door at home, when I heard a
> Common Raven calling and then looked up to see it harrassing a
> Red-tailed Hawk.  Common Ravens are indeed common in Cache Valley, but
> I've only heard them once from my house in the year and a half I've
> lived here, and this is the first time I've seen one from there.  (In
> contrast, American Crows are pretty much daily.)  Here's a composite
> photo:
> http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n105/Tsirtalis/compsmall.jpg
> I went to the 20-20 Ponds in search of the Greater Scaup and American
> Tree Sparrows reported by Jason Pietrzak.  I couldn't pass up the chance
> to practice scaup identification with side-by-side comparisons, and I've
> been wanting to get good shots of Tree Sparrows for a while now.
> Unfortunately, I found neither the Greater Scaup nor the Tree Sparrows,
> only 30 or so Lesser Scaup and about 20 White-crowned Sparrows.  Most of
> the White-crowned Sparrows were juveniles:
> http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n105/Tsirtalis/WCSPsmall.jpg
> I've seen many fewer Merlins this winter than in the last two years.
> Today I saw my first of the year, and only my second this season, in the
> town of Newton.
> Manure has been spread on many fields in the valley, which can be a good
> place to look for birds.  I couldn't find any special visitors among the
> Horned Larks today:
> http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n105/Tsirtalis/HOLAsmall.jpg
> There was a flock of about 500 Canada Geese feeding along Sam Fellow
> Road where the White-fronted Goose was seen last year.  I found one
> Cackling Goose among these Canadas, shown here at the lower right:
> http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n105/Tsirtalis/CACGsmall.jpg
>
> Good birding,
> Ryan
>
> Ryan P. O'Donnell
> Department of Biology and the Ecology Center
> Utah State University
> 5305 Old Main Hill
> Logan, UT 84322-5305
>
> http://200birds.blogspot.com
>
>
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