So that was the first Keith and Blue experience. It makes you wonder at least a little about some of those “heard only” identifications… However, as it turned out, Keith said the Jay had not been calling – what I had heard was Keith’s playback trying to attract the bird. I told Keith that I had been just uphill and thought I had heard the Blue Jay calling. I quickly joined him, and there it was – species number 355 in Washington for 2015 and photo number 352. Indeed he was downhill from me – just where I thought I had heard the call. Just then I got a call from Keith who told me he had found time to go birding and was on the Blue Jay right then.
At one point I heard the Jay calling from an area close by and down hill from where I had been looking. When I got there in the very late morning, I drove the neighborhood and stopped on occasion to listen for the Jay’s raucous call. I contacted Keith who did not think he would be available to join me but provided terrific directions to the area where the bird had been seen. I had seen a Blue Jay in Washington in each of the preceding three years but did not have one for 2015 and since I was doing a “Big Picture Year” really wanted to add a picture to my list. In early December 2015, Keith reported a Blue Jay in Clarkston. Before concluding that story, here is the other Keith and Blue connection. Of course I contacted Keith and he confirmed that the bird was still being seen and that he would be happy to serve as guide and meet me the following morning and try together. After finishing a morning commitment on Tuesday January 3, I decided to head off to Lewiston, spend the night there and try for the bird on Wednesday morning.
Red flanked bluetail song windows#
I only had two windows of available time and the weather was getting really cold in Idaho, so there was concern whether the Bluetail would survive. Both would require either a ridiculously long single day trip (although I have done longer before) or an overnight. When 2017 arrived I debated making the long drive to Lewiston or the even longer trek to Comox which involved two ferries and the border crossing.
But I had no photo of this species – did not take photos in 1979 and my visit to Queen’s Park was miserable – pouring rain and very poor distant views of an uncooperative bird. It was just across the Snake River – less than 1/2 mile from Washington, but borders are borders – so I stayed at home in 2016 perhaps hoping that some other rarity would show up in Washington. If it had been in Washington I would have gone immediately as it would have been the first state record and a Mega-must see. record until another showed up in Comox recently. I did see the one at Queen’s Park in British Columbia on January 16, 2013, the only B.C. One was on private property in Ferndale, Washington in 2015 but I did not know of it at the time. There are Ebird records from the easternmost Aleutian Islands in Alaska, a single record from California and a single record from Oregon. I had seen one at the Mai Po Nature Preserve in Hong Kong on Christmas Day in 1979. It is a primarily Asian bird that should be wintering in Southeast Asia. Late last year he reported that a Red Flanked Bluetail had been found by John Hanna at Hells Gate State Park in Lewiston and then posted some beautiful photos.
Keith lives in Lewiston, Idaho but is a premiere birder (and photographer) in Clarkston and Asotin County across the Snake River from that hometown. Who knows why, but Keith Carlson is somehow tied in to birds I want to see that are at least in part BLUE – Read on. Not a normal headline I acknowledge but it fits.
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