Hello, Birders. Hannah and Andrew and I had a nice time birding in Boulder County earlier today, Monday, June 6th.
At Pella Crossing, we had a second-calendar-year male ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK. Here's a map showing where the bird was: http://tinyurl.com/3vsfq9u. The bird was impressively loud. It was clearly audible at a distance of 1,750 feet. Bring insect repellant if you visit this site; the local Cedar Waxwings are useless. West-northwest of Hygiene, where the St. Vrain River crosses 63rd Street, we had a loudly singing RED-EYED VIREO. The bird was singing from the tree shown here: http://tinyurl.com/5syhkv8. We found a singing Bobolink here, too. The 75th Street bridge over Boulder Creek had some good birds. Right away, we found an EASTERN PHOEBE; if I'm not mistaken, Bill Kaempfer found this species here a few weeks ago. Soon after we found the phoebe, it flew under the bridge, and another one flew out; thus we observed nest-exchange, constituting yet another confirmation of breeding by this species in Boulder County in 2011. (Christian Nunes got the ball rolling with one or two confirmations--along South Boulder Creek, as I recall--earlier this year.) Also nice here was a gigantic nest, full of baby American Dippers. I wonder how many instances there are of American Dipper and Eastern Phoebe nesting within a few feet of each other. On the drive into Cottonwood Marsh, a beautiful YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO flew right in front of our car. (It had nice orange remiges and greater primary coverts; cf. B. K. Percival.) Then it landed in the tree shown here: http://tinyurl.com/5u2xxds. Hannah and Andrew were so excited by the cuckoo; I thought that was cool. (Cara Stiles: You online right now? Maybe the bird is singing, what with the lowering clouds and all. "Rain Crow," y'know...) Along Lookout Road between 79th Street and 95th Street, we had a tantalizing "one that got away." It looked like a SAGE SPARROW during the brief time that I observed it at some distance through binoculars. And when it flew away, its tail was nice and black with white corners. Hm. Well, if anybody wants to go looking for it, try this map: http://tinyurl.com/64qbj2a. At Rabbit Mountain, the highlight was a large WESTERN RATTLESNAKE, creating total mayhem as it slithered through a prairie dog colony. Otherwise, we had the usual ravens, Rock Wrens, and indeterminate LAZIGO BUNTINGS. One of the Lazigos sounded pretty good for Indigo, but we couldn't get a look at it; oh, well. Had a Blue Grosbeak in here, too. ------------------------------- Ted Floyd Editor, Birding Blog: http://tinyurl.com/4n6qswt Twitter: http://tinyurl.com/2ejzlzv Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/2wkvwxs ------------------------------- -- 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.
