We had good weather for our second April 2026 kestrel nest box survey in northern Douglas Co. Three weeks ago, on our first survey of the season, we made sure the boxes on our route were clean and had fresh wood chips, but despite the few kestrels along the way, no boxes were occupied. However, the kestrels have been busy since then. Today 9 of our 18 boxes were occupied, and 14 eggs were seen. In four boxes females remained on the nest when we peeked in with the borescope, potentially hiding more eggs. It will be interesting to check on these boxes again in 2 weeks.

On the Waterville Plateau the over-wintering Rough-legged Hawks are on their way North, replaced by Swainson’s Hawks newly arrived from their wintering grounds in Argentina. We saw five Swainson’s Hawks today. It seems to me that when they first show up in the Spring, they are especially slow to flush from whatever they are perched on when I step out of the car to take their photo. I’d be slow to get off my pole too if I had just flown many thousands of miles to get here.

Today, we saw something we have rarely seen in the 22 years we have been driving the road through Upper Moses Coulee – White-throated Swifts!  We had known they lived in the Coulee, but had very rarely seen them ourselves. So today, we were really excited to see them flitting around, up and down, over the basalt about a half mile north of the highway, where the scree juts out toward the road. They were fascinating to watch and impossible to photograph.

When we approach the scree, we usually always pull over, turn off the engine and step out of the car. We stand there and look and listen to see what we can observe. As we scan the wall, we see movement as something flutters in front of the basalt and lands on a rock. Sometimes binoculars tell us what it is, sometimes we have to take a photo with the big lens and enlarge the picture to see the field marks. This time it’s an American Kestrel, who is soon joined by a second. 

As we sit there, we hear the song of the Canyon Wren, the Rock Wren, a Western Meadowlark, and a Say’s Phoebe. We hear the call of Sandhill Cranes as they fly overhead. Altogether, we observed ten species while standing there.

We continue on the road up towards the south end of Jameson Lake. The waterfowl are arriving in large numbers. We see all kinds of ducks – Mallards, Redheads, Ring-necks, Buffleheads, Hooded Mergansers, Ruddys, and well over 100 of those little black bobbers who are not ducks at all, but part of the Rail family, American Coots. 

At the lake we see more White-throated Swifts, along with Prairie Falcons, American Kestrels, and Red-tailed Hawks in a courtship display. Double-crested Cormorants glide over the lake surface.  

We see three kinds of Blackbirds, Red-winged, Yellow headed, and Brewers.

But the icing on the cake today was seeing two Golden Eagles flying overhead, one adult and one immature.

The gate to the upper end of this part of the lake, the WDFW section, won’t be open until the end of the month. However, we won’t be going there then, as that is the beginning of fishing season. For the first couple of weeks the area is absolutely overrun with people. We will wait a bit and then go back during the middle of the week. 

This is just the beginning of the season. The neotropical migrants aren’t here yet. We haven’t seen the Osprey, and the Herons seemed to be hiding. They are probably up beyond the gate, where we can’t see them right now.

A list of everything we saw today: