In Grand Junction for a Grand Valley Audubon presentation, Urling and I went to Colorado National Monument to chase this year's Black-chinned Sparrow. (Apparently observers have seen single birds several times [like two] in the past five years.) We spent an hour or more in the rain, some of that time, fortunately, in a cave, and heard a sporadically singing House Finch, but no sparrow. On the way back to the car, we saw a Juniper Titmouse, Black-throated Gray Warbler, and Gray-headed Junco. Also a Black-chinned bird -- Hummingbird instead of sparrow.
We drove up that spectacular road to the Glade Park turn off and returned to the sparrow site and tried again. This time we got almost to the trail fork and saw it perched in a dead (ash?). Singing regularly, sort of a variation on a Field Sparrow song. It stayed there for 5 minutes, then left to patrol the area, eventually singing from one of the giant sagebrushes only to disappear again. A T (Territorial) for the Breeding Bird Atlas, based on the continuing observations for over a week. Hugh & Urling Kingery Franktown -- 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.
