Hello everyone,
The warm, calm conditions yesterday following a stretch of bad weather were conducive to a major push of south-bound raptors along the Front Range foothills. I perched myself on an exposed hogback in the Eldorado Mountain Open Space just inside Jefferson County for about 1.5 hrs yesterday afternoon. Between 1:00-2:05 pm, there was a constant flow of birds, mostly Red-tailed Hawks, following slow, low-altitude lines along the hogback and the surrounding areas. During this time, there were almost calm conditions with a slight (<5 mph) breeze from the E. At 2:05 a stiff S wind kicked up. Snow began to whirl around up on the upper slopes. As soon as this south wind kicked up the flow of migrants stopped completely. During an hour and five minutes I did count these: 53 Red-tailed Hawk 40 adult Western 6 imm light Western 1 adult Eastern 2 imm light Eastern 1 funky adult intermediate Harlan's 3 unknown age/race 2 Ferruginous Hawks 1 dark, 1 adult light, 1st sighting at this property for me, expected in this habitat during these conditions 1 adult Bald Eagle 1 adult male American Kestrel 1 immature Northern Harrier (local, not migrating) 6 Cooper's Hawks 2 adult, 1 immature, 3 unknown ages, both adults w/full crop 7 Sharp-shinned Hawks 4 adults, 1 immature, 2 unknown ages, one adult w/full crop Raptor menu choices: 1 fly-over Cassin's Finch 1 fly-over House Finch 2 Clark's Nutcrackers (full crops, presumably feeding on the copious Ponderosa Pine seeds which are fueling larger-than-normal numbers of Red-breasted Nuthatches, Evening Grosbeaks and Golden-crowned Kinglets {ok, maybe they aren't eating pine seeds, but there are lots of them this year}, but not a single Type 2 Red Crossbill in weeks) Cheers, Christian Nunes pajaro...@hotmail.com http://www.flickr.com/photos/christian_nunes/ _________________________________________________________________ Windows 7: It helps you do more. Explore Windows 7. http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/windows-7/default.aspx?ocid=PID24727::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WWL_WIN_evergreen3:102009 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Colorado Field Ornithologists: http://www.cfo-link.org/ Colorado County Birding: http://www.coloradocountybirding.com/ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.as/group/cobirds?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---