I would like my first post to be an old story of something unusual I saw years ago. It might have been the winter of 1996 but it was around that time that Utah was experiencing a cold one, very much like the winter we are now having. It was a bitter and snowy winter and a lot of the mountain birds were escaping into the valley. I had feeders set up in the backyard. Our home was located just below the benches in Sandy. It was the best backyard birding I have ever had.

The more severe the weather got the more species and large flocks would inundate the backyard. Amongst the fun visitors were groups of Steller’s Jays, occasional Red Crossbills, flocks of Rosy-Finches, and Cassin’s Finches. The thistle feeder was producing hoards of American Goldfinches and Pine Siskins. We even had a White-throated Sparrow visit for a couple of weeks. I got my daily birding fix just by looking out the window. It was on one of these miserable days when I couldn’t keep my eyes off of the feeders that I saw something I doubt I will ever see again.

It started when all the Pine Siskens and Goldfinches bolted off of the thistle feeder. I looked around anxiously expecting to see an accipiter or maybe a Merlin but it was just a Magpie messing with the Goldfinches. I kept watching the Magpie as it seemed to have singled out one of the Goldfinches. This Magpie wasn’t messing around, it was on the tail of this little bird and gaining ground. As the small finch headed down the dry creek in our backyard the distance between the two birds shrunk as the Magpie hawked the little guy right out of the air. The Magpies talons resembled that of a hawk as it carried its lifeless prey into the trees.

I will never look at a Magpie again in the same way. They are very intelligent and adaptable birds that will take advantage of a situation when food is scarce. Some of you will take this story and dislike Magpies more than you did before. Others, like me, will appreciate and admire them even more. Love or hate them the Black-billed Magpie is an interesting bird.

This weekend, I led a Bridgerland Audubon Society field trip to the Ruby Mountains of Nevada in search of Himalayan Snowcocks. The Himalayan Snowcock is a large grouse, about the size of a Greater Sage-Grouse, that is adapted for living in the high rocky peaks of the Himalayan Mountains. In the 1960s and 1970s it was introduced to the Ruby Mountains of Nevada for hunting. The introduction was successful, and now this isolated mountain range is the only place outside of the Himalayas where this species can be seen. This species is sought after by the top birders of North America, and a visit to their habitat was depicted in the recent movie, The Big Year.

On Saturday morning, I met the other birders on this BAS trip in the hotel in Elko at 4:30 AM, and we were on the trail at the end of Lamoille Canyon a little after 5:30 AM. We arrived at the bench above Island Lake just as the sun was starting to hit the tops of the mountain peaks around us. At least four Himalayan Snowcocks were calling from various points around the cirque of cliffs. (The calls were all heard within about a half hour after sunrise, then the birds stopped vocalizing). Collectively, we saw two individuals, and the whole group had leisurely scope views at one individual as it foraged around a ledge in the cliffs. We also watched several flocks of Black Rosy-Finches flitting around the scree below the cliffs. We had found our target bird before 7:30 AM, so we spent a little while looking for more of them, and watching the mammals of the area, which included Mule Deer, Pika, and Mountain Goats. We then headed back down to the trailhead to start another hike.

The next hike we took was a loop to Lamoille Lake. Some parts of the trail were a bit icy, and the early parts of the trail were very birdy, so the hiking was slow. Clark's Nutcrackers were actively gathering and caching pine seeds in a large open stand of pines. We were impressed by the numbers here, and estimated about 300 individual birds in this 3.5 mile loop, most of which were in the first mile. It was fun to watch the nutcrackers extract the nuts from the cones with ease and fill their crops to the point it looked like they might pop, before flying off to a suitable place to hide them for the winter. Other species seen along this loop included Golden-crowned Kinglets, Red-breasted Nuthatches, a White-breasted Nuthatch, Brown Creepers, and three Dusky Grouse, among others. GCKI and BRCR are apparently pretty rare in northern Nevada: eBird has only five and four (respectively) previous records for these species in Elko County.  We ended back at the parking lot at about 3:00, tired from our early start and many miles on the trail at high elevation, but thrilled with finding many great birds including our target bird, the Himalayan Snowcock.

After setting up a couple feeders at Snowbird last night I decided to see if anything had stumbled upon them yet. When I arrived at the feeders they looked as full as yesterday so I moved on and did my regular birding loop of Alta on the bypass road. After doing that and not finding any birds I headed back to the feeders, pulled off the road, and parked the car to sit and wait. It didn't take long for a Steller's Jay to show up, followed by a Mountain Chickadee, and then another, and another Steller's Jay. The birds were not using the feeders, but instead picking seed up I spilled the day before. So I made the decision to pull down one of the feeders, emptying its contents on the snow below the other feeder. After a few minutes the same birds returned. I spent a little while photographing before I took off, here is one of the jays:

Click the photo above to view more.

The traffic was a bit annoying, but didn't seem to bother the birds. I think the food on the ground will be a little more effective than that in the feeder, but both are nice to have. Now let's see if the Rosy-Finches can find their way to this new spot!

Oh yeah, I did see one other bird while I was up there... It was the rare and infamous "whirly-bird". Pretty cool photo opportunity being in the right place at the right time.

Click the photo above to view more.

Call me crazy, but I love Magpies. They're beautiful, intelligent and just plain fun. No one else has to like them, because my opinion only matters to me. I saw a Magpie flying over the freeway today and I smiiiiiiiiiiled big.