Fall Season Under Way!

Our Fall season is officially under way at our Lucky Peak field site! (Driving directions here)

We started our fall songbird migration banding on July 16th and have had a good season so far. Seems like this year was good for many of Idaho's breeding birds (we are catching lots of youngsters!). Right now we have hit the August lull (some birds have already peaked in their migration, while others are still raising families and waiting to head south).

The season has already been an exciting one with some unusual species (see photos below), and Hawk Trapping, Hawkwatch, and Owls haven't even started yet!!

Daily Songbird banding will continue until October 15th (weather depending), Hawks and Owls will start on August 28th (peaking in September) and continue until the end of October.

FOR DAILY UPDATES BE SURE TO VISIT OUR FACEBOOK PAGE! (no facebook profile or login required)

Here are some pictures from the songbird season so far:

Lazuli Bunting male (Photo by Liz Urban)

Northern Flicker (Photo by Liz Urban)

"Western" Flycatcher (Photo by Liz Urban)

Fledgling Western Tanager (Photo by Heidi Ware)

a net full of Red-breasted Nuthatches (Photo by Heidi Ware)

Canyon Wren! (Photo by Heidi Ware)

Lazuli Bunting family (male, female, and 2 fledglings) (Photo by Heidi Ware)

two young MacGillivray's Warblers both hatched this year, but at very different stages! (Photo by Heidi Ware)

Adult male Black-headed Grosbeak (Photo by Jake Shorty)

male Western Tanager (Photo by Jake Shorty)

male Rufous Hummingbird (Photo by Jake Shorty)

Mountain Chickadee party! (Photo by Jake Shorty)

young female Hairy Woodpecker (photo by Heidi Ware)

Willow Flycatcher (photo by Heidi Ware)

Yellow-breasted Chat! (photo by Heidi Ware)

very young Townsend's Solitaire (photo by Heidi Ware)

Least Flycatcher! (photo by Jay Carlisle)

Northern Pygmy-owl! (photo by Garrett MacDonald)

Releasing a Dusky Flycatcher (photo by Jay Carlisle)

Hummingbird Banding!

Sorry for the lack of updates on here! To get day-to-day updates about all things IBO, check out our facebook page at www.facebook.com/IdahoBirdObservatory.  You do not need to log in or even have a facebook account to see all our exciting updates and photos. (You only need to sign up if you want to post comments of your own).

Hummingbird Banding has been going well so far this summer!
We have been banding Hummingbirds at a private residence in Idaho City. Compared to last year's banding at the Shakespeare festival, we are getting great results so far! The last time we were up there we caught 68 hummingbirds, both Black-chinned and Calliopes, and that was with traps closed half the time to let us "catch up" on our banding! Compared to last year, when we thought catching 4 total birds all day was exciting :)

We will be continuing banding throughout the summer, every other Saturday.
SPACE IS LIMITED on these trips, so please contact Jessica Pollock to sign up:
Phone: 208-426-2225
Email: jessicapollock@boisestate.edu

The next few banding dates are:

June 30th

July 14th

July 28th 

August 11th 

Here are some photos from this years banding so far:

Male and Female Calliope Hummingbirds, waiting in their "straightjackets" to be banded

Female Calliope

Male Calliope

Male Black-chinned

Wild Lens Inc. Webisode #3--Raptors of Lucky Peak

Check out this webisode about Hawk Trapping at Lucky Peak, made by our fantastic friends over at Wild Lens Inc. Wild Lens has posted various webisodes featuring different aspects of IBO's Lucky Peak project.
This is the third video in the series. Enjoy! :)

Wild Lens Inc. Webisode #2--Owls of Lucky Peak

February was IBO Month for our fantastic friends over at Wild Lens Inc. This means that throughout the month, Wild Lens posted various webisodes featuring different of IBO's Lucky Peak project
This second video is about our owl banding project. Check it out!

Wild Lens Inc. Webisode #1--Songbird Migration

February is IBO Month for our fantastic friends over at Wild Lens Inc. This means that throughout the month, Wild Lens will be posting a webisode featuring some aspect of IBO.
This first video is about our Lucky Peak songbird project. Check it out!