The red-tailed hawk is one of several species that have made peace with humans and live among us. I’m continually amazed at how they routinely perch on light posts along I-84, watching for ground squirrels and mice in the borrow pits. Like American kestrels and cliff swallows, they seem to understand vehicles and mostly avoid getting whacked.

In 1864, William Cullen Bryant opened his poem, “Robert of Lincoln,” with these lines.

Most of the time when I’m out birding and someone asks me what I’m looking for (deer?) or what I’ve seen (deer?), I just answer, “birds.” Most of the deer seekers will answer with a sort of disappointed, “oh,” and then move on. Some will tell me where they saw a deer.

Every few years, the North American Bird Conservation Initiative (nabci-us.org/) publishes a report on the “state of the birds.” The geographic scope for these reports varies. Some are just about birds in the U.S., and some are for all of North America. Others address just species on private lands or public lands or some other component of North America.

Spring is one of the best times to see raptors at the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area, south of Kuna.

The male wood duck is one of the most beautiful birds on Earth. We’re lucky we can see them almost any day of the week, any time of the year, in Kathryn Albertson Park. They love to hang out under the cover of overhanging trees along the south edge. The females are pretty cool, too, in the classically understated way of female birds.