Each year I do four counts in the vicinity of Ward along the Peak to Peak Highway in western Boulder County. These counts have been going on for 29 years at this point which makes for a rather amazing undertaking and data set.
This year the count can only be described as a really odd day. The block that my group works goes from about two miles west of Ward along the Brainard Lake Road into the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area back down hill to about five miles east of Ward along Lefthand Canyon. Some of you might think, wasn't that the area that was just burned? Well, no-this block is directly north of the Fourmile Canyon burn area from just slightly less than two weeks ago. In fact I had scheduled the count for last Saturday but postponed it due to fire concerns. Today six of us (including Gary Matthews, Maggie Boswell, Todd Deininger, Tom Wilberding and Christian Nunes) made it up into the mountains for this year's count. Interestingly the weather, while nippy at the 7:30 a.m. start was much more summery than down here along the plains because we were above the upslope inversion that the rest of you experienced. It was sunny and hot at 9,000 feet. But the birding was quite bizarre. We had very few birds, but lots of species-if that makes sense. For instance 12 Chipping Sparrows compared to 224 last year! The same could be said for juncos, robins, chickadees, bluebirds, etc. On the other hand, the 48 species we found was tied for 2nd highest in 29 years and included Lewis' Woodpecker and Cassin's Vireo-both firsts for the Ward fall count-as well as Dusky Grouse, Northern Goshawk, Virginia's Warbler, Townsend's Warbler and such. I guess that's why we keep doing it! Bill Kaempfer Boulder -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en.
