Moscow area birds - in and a few out of town

There are quite a few birds in Moscow right now most notably it seems large numbers of Cassin's Finches. We had a flurry of activity in our yard Saturday AM and this morning which included a hard to count group of Cassin's (probably 15-20) which I think is a high count for our yard. Over President's Day weekend a report of  50 was submitted to the GBBC from a resident on the east side of Moscow which seems plausible given the numbers around (but one has to be careful of the possible confusion w/ House Finch in these cases).

This morning walking in to work I had more Cassin's Finches and several singing Varied Thrushes  (hard to tell how many due to difficulty in localizing this species by their song). There has also been a Varied Thrush on campus singing from a little bramble on the east end of the Life Sciences bldg. Also on my walk I had a Yellow-rumped Warbler in an east side neighborhood. There are still plenty of Evening Grosbeaks around including a few that came into our feeders on Saturday AM which we don't see very often despite them being regular fly overs. And some occasional small groups of fly over Red Crossbills. Also nice to hear all the singing Dark-eyed Juncos around town at this time of year.

On Saturday I had a couple of brief opportunities to check areas on the outskirts of town and had a couple of Killdeer, an adult Bald Eagle, and small dark goose w/ about 30 Canadas north of town that I thought was a good candidate for Cackling (Taverner's) Goose. There was also a couple of Killdeer near Paradise Creek on the southeast side of campus yesterday (Monday).

thanks, Charles.

--
Charles Swift
Moscow, Idaho
(north-central Idaho, 80 miles SE of Spokane, WA)
46°43′54″ N, 116°59′50″ W
email: chaetura@gmail.com
skype: charles.swift
google voice: 208-991-2473

--
Charles Swift
Moscow, Idaho
(north-central Idaho, 80 miles SE of Spokane, WA)
46°43′54″ N, 116°59′50″ W
email: chaetura@gmail.com
skype: charles.swift
google voice: 208-991-2473