Melierax

Got 50 species on the Twin Falls CBC! No lifers or yearbirds, but someone saw a Varied Thrush and I saw that today, which was a lifer.

I agree with House Sparrow.

Finally got lifer American Tree Sparrow yesterday!

Oh, interesting. I know that there's one living here in Idaho every winter.... I have no idea about borealis though so I don't know the variability on the face. I'll trust yalls judgement!

White on the face suggests something else, I was specifically thinking maybe light morph Harlan's RTHA, but not sure if the tail fits. Maybe @akiley can help?

Giss says Ring-billed to me. I believe Californias have a distinct hood this time of year, and the black on the wings seems too little for California.

Cool! Definitely one of my favorite birds. I'll add mine:

Christmas Bird Count!

I'm doing my first one on the 14th in Hagerman WMA, and the Twin Falls one on the 20th. I don't think I'll be doing a January one...

I try to keep track of yearlists through the year on a notepad that I keep in my pocket but it always ends up forgotten by May . At the moment I'm just kind of ignoring my past sightings and trusting my eBird yearlists since I've been using it more. If I really want to know, however, I'll just take the ABA bird list and write out all the ones I've seen for life, year, yard, or "patch"... but the list ends up getting thrown away randomly later, so I guess I could say I don't really list that much. I do like to know roughly where I'm at though. I have used word documents in the past, but I find them bulky and hard to keep track of. I did recently get the sibley book that lets you keep track of "first seen" dates, and I've been pretty faithful with that. Would highly recommend it: Sibley Lifelist Book I'm extremely proud of my yard, to a fault, so yes I keep yardlists . I think it's important because even though travelling is fun, there's something special about seeing something right at home (like the GGOW that randomly showed up at my back door on this Thanksgiving).

Kinda looks like a female American Kestrel.... EDIT: I still can't see it very well but I can see an Accipiter after staring at it for a long time.

Yep, females do not have a blue bill.

That's actually a Ruddy Duck - note the fairly large bill and eyestripe.

Okay, that's what I thought but the undertail looked light to me.

Yep, looks good for OCWA.

Do you have any more photos? I was thinking maybe Tennessee since the undertail looks quite pale, but that could be due to the lighting.

Tail pattern - not a red-shouldered. I was thinking Broad-winged, but different red-tailed subspecies can look like this... I think Krider's? I havent studied RTHA subspecies in a while.

Stanley, ID. My mom and I have spent over 50 hours searching for them in the county, and one shows up right outside the back door. ?

So uh.... GGOW in the yard today!!!!???? ????

I agree. Also note tiny bill and yellow primaries.

It looks super weird sitting like that... just by location alone I would be inclined to say red-shouldered but I'm not really seeing the back checkered pattern. What about broad winged based on stature?

No problem! Haha, House Sparrows can be confusing.

That's a House Sparrow. Welcome!

Awwwwww ?

Anybody else???