the book my mom got me is the national audubon society's feild guide to birds western region edition. definitly a good resource. we take it with us on every trip into the sticks.
last summer we were doing a mt bike ride down a trail ive been riding for 10+ years. the first 8 or so years i was young and bulletproof, and rode the trail as fast as possible and never saw any wildlife. the last 4-5 years ive slown waaaaay down and have seen animals galore. fox, bear, turkeys, coyotes, even found a rubber boa which is a super rare snake in north america. anyway, i was tearing down the easy section and a blue headed bird was following the trail right in front of me for a couple hundred feet. it was really cool, and id never seen any birds in the area like that. i ended up at a local petstore later that day and happen to ask just the right person if they knew what it was. the chick looked at me all weird and went and grabbed a book to show me a pic. it ended up being a lazuli blunting. i guess they only reside in this area for a week or so on there way to mexico. the girl was all jealous and asking me where. said she has been trying to spot one for several years.
another cool thing about that trail is a family (gaggle, herd, flock??) of hawks resides somewhere closeby and they follow us for 3-4 miles quite often. only reason i can imagine is that we spook food, but ive never seen any of them dive down on anything.
if your into raptors, you might consider here:
http://www.visitidaho.org/attraction/wi ... tion-area/
ive been out there a handfull of times random times of the year and always see some kind of large birds. was never there to bird, but i love wildlife and am always on the lookout. lots of my friends fish in that area and i usually tagged along to look for snakes, lizards, and scorpions.
ive rambled long enough, but if you start getting some pix, post them up. id like to check'em out.