Date: 9/19/25 10:56 am From: monique slipher via Inland-nw-birders <inland-nw-birders...> Subject: Re: [inland-NW-birders] Lake Pend Oreille (ID) "Pelagic"
Doug your mention of the loons reminds me to post that I saw several Common Loon just south of Martin Bay on east side of Lake C d'A, in early morning of both days last weekend (13-14 Sept).
I was visiting N-Sid-Sen Camp (private property) which has a small sheltered cove, and saw 3 hanging out together there on Sat morning; same 3 on Sunday, soon joined by 2 more that flew in from out on the lake. They're heard periodically from the camp, usually calling from across the lake, and very occasionally seen - but that's way more than usually found there!
Not much else happening there birdwise, but they made my weekend 🙂
Monique Slipher
Pullman WA
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From: Doug Ward <dougward...>
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2025 8:39 PM
To: <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.
