Idaho Bird Observatory: Part 4

The weekend of September 23, 2011 was the busiest of the year at Lucky Peak. It was so busy in fact that the number of visitors (75+) on Saturday actually outnumbered the songbird and raptor trap total (~55) for the day! It was a great day to be up on the mountain interacting with the public as several large groups were in attendance. IBO was hosting their first raptor workshop from Friday-Sunday, and around 15 individuals from all over the country were in attendance. The main goal of the workshop was to help these folks gain field experience in raptor identification skills. On Saturday they spent most of the day at hawkwatch looking for migrating raptors and learning how to ID them in flight. Birds were also brought up from the trapping station for a close up look at key identification features. Pictured below is fellow Boise State University Raptor Biology graduate student Patrick Kolar showing off a female Sharp-Shinned Hawk to the workshop.

The highlight of the weekend bird-wise came on Friday afternoon as we managed to trap a male Merlin. Merlin’s are similar in size to their falcon cousin the American Kestrel, but nest almost exclusively throughout Alaska and Canada. They can be distinguished from kestrels by their overall darker appearance (usually), lack of russet coloring on their back, and lack of strong facial markings. Merlin’s migrate to the continental US in the fall and winter where they are found in usually much smaller number than kestrels. Pictured on top is the male Merlin we trapped on Friday. For comparison I have also included a picture of a male American Kestrel I trapped in Boise last winter.

Neil Paprocki