Looks like Manny's got us all beat with 25
species. Way to go. I haven't come too close but have had
a great time. Yesterday at the Oxbow Pond I saw a
Sharp-shinned Hawk, a Northern Harrier and and Long-eared Owl
(I had to write that one in and they haven't posted
it yet). There were hardly any SBB's which surprised
me.<br><br>On 5000 South between 1500 and 2500 East I saw 13
Bald Eagles in a field south of Hy Slaugh's pond.
There most be a carcass there or something.<br><br>I
spotted another eight eagles in Jensen all together on
the Green River ice and also 60 Sandhill Cranes.
Today I happened to get 10 American Crows flying right
over my house. It's kinda fun to see the results come
in from around the state and continent. It looks
like I have the only Long-eared Owl in the country so
far, I sure hope they show it.<br><br>Sound's like
Kathy had a great time in the east. Glad you're back. I
wonder if the Harris' and White-throated Sparrows are
still at Ron's feeder.

as some of you know, I've been hoping to see a
merlin for a quite a while now. Shouldn't be all that
hard in Utah, but somehow I always missed the boat.
This past week I finally did see one, but I had to go
to Georgia to do it! I was in scrub habitat along a
beach on the s. Georgia coast when I heard a great
commotion in some nearby shrubs. A second later, a cardinal
shot out with a merlin in hot pursuit - they passed
right in front of me and I got a great (although brief)
look. The cardinal escaped intact, by the way. Other
birds seen on the trip were yellow-crowned night
herons, anhingas, tricolored herons, brown pelicans, pine
and palm warblers, black skimmers - 63 species in
all, nothing particularly rare for the area but lots
of new birds for me.<br><br>I've missed 2 out of 3
days of the backyard bird count but I see from the
results map that several of you have reported in already.
I hope to join you tomorrow - Manny, how did your
Ouray counts turn out?

Hola once again! After posting the message early
this morning I realized that my message was to broad
or general with regards to location. I will be doing
the counts at the Ouray National Wildlife Refuge
which is located southeast of Pelican Lake on State Hwy
88. Feel free to contact me out at the Refuge
(435-545-2522 ext 223; manuel_deleon@...) if you have any
questions or comments. <br>By the way have you seen the
Bald Eagles hanging around the area of 1500 west and
ca. 2000 south. 3 mature/adult eagles have been
feeding on carrion near our house. enjoy! Manny

Good morning all! I know that this is short
notice but I am planning on counting 2 areas on the
Refuge. The assistant manager keeps a couple of bird
feeders so I will spend some time around his house and
then I will choose another area around the tour route
or Leota bottom. The first count will be tomorrow at
about 0800, if anyone is interested just meet me at the
Refuge Headquarters. I leave the other details "open" so
that if anyone is interested we can plan
accordingly--basically I'm flexible within Sat and Sun. I'm sure most of
you are familiar with this effort but if not visit
www.birdsource.org for all the details. The count goes from friday
(16th) to monday (19th). Hope all has a good day!
Cheers! Manny

saw another northern shrike this past Sunday, near the 1500 N/1500 E
intersection.

I certainly is okay!  Welcome aboard.  Please don't hesitate to participate.

I hope it's OK for a guy from Provo to join in
with your group. I've hear a few thing about birds
over there but I keep thinking I'd like to hear more.
Thanks for the message about the Say's Phoebe. Birds do
some strange things
sometimes.<br><br>Greetings,<br>Milton

I went to Utah Birds and saw how it works. Cool!
My list is at work so I'll have to get it home,
tally it up and post it. Don't expect to be blown away
by my list, it isn't large either and doesn't go
much beyond the local area either.

last year (on the other web site) we had a short
thread about keeping track of the species seen in Uintah
County. I just updated my list numbers on the Utah Birds
web site and thought I would post the info here too,
for what it's worth. I'm up to 61 species in my yard,
203 in Uintah County and 211 in Utah (since 1997,
when I started keeping a journal). If I've learned
anything in the past year, it's that I'm missing a lot of
birds and these totals are pretty darn low! My Utah
total would certainly be helped by birding outside the
basin once in a while - I haven't even been to Bear
River MBR since starting the list. Maybe this will be
the year I really get out and look for birds. If
anyone else keeps track it would be interesting to
compare notes.

I can believe it - Day and Heather told me they had one hanging around their
yard in December.  I've seen them in late winter at Stewart Lake (although not
often).  Good find Myke!

I swear, I saw a Say Phoebe in Jensen Friday.  I got a real good look at it and
I can't see that it can be anything else.  Is this possible?

that last post reminded me to check on the dates for this year's GBBC count -
it's Feb. 16-19.  For info, go to the links section of the club web site and
click on the Birdsource link.

I get the biggest kick out of Kingfishers, thanks for the tip.<br><br>I've
started to feed at the Oxbow Pond in anticipation of the GBBC.  I'll keep you
posted if anything cool shows up.

there's a kingfisher hanging around the Kid's
Canal (1500 W at about 1600 N in Vernal). Not a rare
bird or anything, just kind of fun to see while
driving around town.<br><br>Went out to the Oxbow Pond
last weekend and saw lots of robins and mtn bluebirds,
but not much else.

channell 10 ctcss 10 is the statewide channell for bird watchers here in
utah<br><br>info can be found at ther website<br><a
href=http://www.utahbirds.org/connections/radios.html
target=new>http://www.utahbirds.org/connections/radios.html</a>

saw my first northern shrike of the winter
yesterday, along Hwy 40 near Duchesne. They're usually not
hard to find around Vernal but I just hadn't run into
one yet. Also, I have a slate-colored junco in my
yard along with the Oregons.

I meant to post this right after the count, but
time got away from me. I joined the Chures for the
first half of the Christmas Bird Count and had an
enjoyable morning, even though here weren't very many birds
compared to last year. There weren't even many ducks to be
seen on the river. We did get some nice views of bald
eagles and picked up a spotted towhee (new for the
count), but no owls or shrikes and not much in the way of
hawks or even sparrows. They may have had better luck
in the afternoon - I took off at lunch time. Maybe
Myke can get the final tally from Dan next time he's
out that way?

I stopped at the pond again today and walked
right up to a bush full of Bushtits. They were busy
preening and paid me absolutely no mind. I sat just four
feet from them for about ten minutes. What delightful
little fellers they are.<br>I also saw Song Sparrows
foraging among the reeds in addition to those mentioned
yesterday.

I stopped at the pond yesterday. I haven't been
there much of late. For the first time in my memory it
has completely dried up. I miss the water/ice. The
dry bed has one advantage though. I got to see it
from a different perspective. Instead of walking
around it on the trail, looking in; I walked around on
the pond bed looking out. It was a lot easier and
very enjoyable. There were Mountain Chickadees
galore<br>as well as Mountain Blue Birds, White Crowned
Sparrows, Magpies, Robins and Juncos.

Fantastic!  This is what I hope NUB can continue to accomplish for all of us.

I got to see both sparrows today in Ron's back
yard - plus he told me about so many other interesting
birds he's seen on and around his property that I've
vowed to pay a lot more attention to the Ashley Creek
area in the future (at least the parts that can be
birded without intruding on private land). The catbird I
thought was such a good find was old news to Ron - he's
had several nesting behind his house, and not just
one but several brown thrashers, plus a blue
grosbeak, peregrines flying over, and a winter visit from a
goshawk. And you're right, he's a really nice guy and a
pleasure to talk with!

Ron volunteered his services to show these birds
to you too, so go ahead and stop in. The address is
1407 E. 500 N. You might call ahead so he knows and
can make sure there's seed on the ground for your
arrival. <br><br>Yes it is Ron who also reported the Brown
Thrasher.<br><br>Good luck!

I might have had a Harris' sparrow in my yard
once - I saw something different among the house
sparrows, thought "Harris?" and ran for binocs. When I got
back to the window it was, of course, gone and has
never re-appeared. I've never seen a WT sparrow around
here. I don't want to take advantage of Ron's good
nature but I'd love to see both of those! Isn't this the
same address that had a brown thrasher last year, or
maybe the year before? The nearby 500 N/1500 E
intersection can be pretty good birding too - there was a
catbird there one spring. Thanks for the info!

I stopped at Ron Bunson's house today and took
another look and WOW! they were both there.<br><br>In
case you missed the last post and since I accidentally
deleted it from the web page, here are
details:<br><br>Sherm Workman tipped me off that both species could be
found at Ron Bronson's feeder. I felt a little awkward,
but stopped by and introduced myself. Ron was very
amiable and willing to show me. We didn't have any luck
the first day, but today both birds showed
up.<br><br>You may have seen Ron's work. He is a masterful
woodcarver specializing in raptors. You can see his
fantastic work at
<a href=http://www.artwork.net/brunson
target=new>http://www.artwork.net/brunson</a><br><br>Neither the Harris' nor the
White-throated are normally
found in the basin so this is a great find. Immagine
seeing them both at the same time.

I wished I could remeber the source but I read an
article in one of the birding magazines (I think Birders
World) about some research done in Calif. on the
different colors of the House finches. It seems that the
lighter colors seem to indicate some stress and they also
noticed the the darker the red the more desirable they
were to the females. If I have more time I will browse
through the magazines and find the article.

I took my scope up to Steinaker and browsed
through the ducks yesterday. There are bufflehead,
ring-necked duck, green-winged teal, pintails, mallards,
redheads, gadwall, Am. wigeon, common goldeneye, ruddy
ducks, ring-billed gulls, and Canada geese. There's also
a white goose hanging around with the Canada geese
that I tried to make into something exciting, but
finally decided was just an adventurous domestic goose.
Still, I've never seen a domestic out there before and
it seems odd. Anyone who wants to see if I missed
something, please take a look (you'll probably need a
scope). I also puzzled briefly over some pale-plumaged
things way over against the western shoreline - until I
noticed the hunting blind in the background and realized
they were Duckus plasticus. <br><br>A couple misc.
sightings that were kind of fun - I got scolded by several
juniper titmice (formerly plain titmouse) at the Dinosaur
Trackway trailhead and saw a mtn chickadee in Tom's yard,
among the more common black-capped. All in all, a good
weekend!

Last year, as I recall I had some orange ones and
thought that was strange. This year I have one which is a
yellow as can be. It seemed like Kathy said there was
some thought that it might be diet related.

thanks for the info!  It's been listed on the Utah Birds site as well (<a
href=http://www.utahbirds.org/
target=new>http://www.utahbirds.org/</a>).<br><br>By the way, thanks for getting
us set up here at Yahoo - I think this will work well.

Dan and Lorraine Chure have set the date of
Saturday, December 30, 2000 for this years Christmas Bird
Count. This is a long time tradition that the Chure's
have graciously hosted for many years. You will find
it to be a great birding opportunity. Last year we
saw a Northern Pygmy Owl, for example, along with a
long list of other species. Plus, it is a chance to
rub shoulders with some excellent local
birders.<br><br>Please call the Chure's to register for the event at
789-6159.<br><br>By the way, since our last CBC Dan Chure has become
Dr. Chure having received his PHD in Paleontology.
Congratulations Doctor Chure!

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