Date: 9/18/25 8:39 pm From: Doug Ward via Inland-nw-birders <inland-nw-birders...> Subject: [inland-NW-birders] Lake Pend Oreille (ID) "Pelagic"
After reading a couple of interesting migration stories on another listserve, thought I'd drop one here for those who still open up INWBirders from time-to-time to read about what's going on in our region. This past Tuesday (16 Sept.'25) a couple of us took the opportunity to go on a "pelagic" boating adventure out of Sandpoint (Bonner Co., ID) around the northern end of Lake Pend Oreille to try and pick up some fall migration oddities on the lake. Our target species were the classics - jaegers, gulls, terns, and phalaropes - but really just wanted to see if this type of trip would produce.
Had the sense it might be a big loon day as we had three (3) separate flyover COMMON LOONs at the City Beach boat launch while we waited for our ride - one flew right over a perched MERLIN which made for an odd pairing. During our ~35 mile journey, we ended up tallying a whopping seventy-four (74) Common Loons, some in rafts of more than twenty (20+); don't recall seeing this many away from the coast. Not far out of Sandpoint had our first highlight, a pretty little juvenile SABINE'S GULL which was likely one found in the area the previous week. On our second leg we were treated a very unexpected BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER flying across Oden Bay and three (3) more expected RED-NECKED PHALAROPEs - the plover really threw us for a loop. It was also during this second leg of the trip we started to notice some migratory waterfowl is starting to show up including good numbers of AMERICAN WIGEON, REDHEAD, and RING-NECKED DUCK with a few early LESSER SCAUP, COMMON GOLDENEYE, BUFFLEHEAD, and RUDDY DUCK. Also in this stretch we noticed large numbers of RED-NECKED and WESTERN GREBEs have begun to mass on the lake - trip totals of over 100 Red-necked and nearly 500 Westerns seemed impressive. Continuing the grebe theme, we came across three (3) rare EARED GREBEs and our first of a number of HORNED GREBEs in Sunnyside Bay, then finished the five species grebe day with our first PIED-BILLED GREBE at the mouth of Denton Slough.
Given we didn't pick up a much hoped for jaeger, nor any terns during our four hour adventure, you'd think we would have been mildly disappointed in the day. Well you'd have thought wrong. This was an awesome morning of birding getting to enjoy the lake in the midst of our fall migration. There is still lots of stuff to be found in our special region, so hope to hear your stories as well.
