Katrina Stowasser and I went up to Gilpin County today for a morning of county birding and everything I mention from this outing can be found on page 39 in the CO Delorme Atlas and/or the county birding website (http://www.coloradocountybirding.com/county/bird_a_county.php?name=Gilpin). We got up there around 6, so decided to try our luck at some owls. We ended up hearing 2 Long-eared Owls, 1 Great Horned Owl, and 1 Northern Saw-whet Owl. We it got light enough to see we started at Los Lagos Reservoir #3 and saw 3 Mallards on the pond. We then made a spot at Manchester Lake and found a small flock of birds, with the best being 1 Brown Creeper, 1 Golden-crowned Kinglet, and 1 Hairy Woodpecker (Mountain race as expected). After going through the flock we then drove a little ways down Tolland Road that goes west out of Rollinsville. About 1/2 a mile out of Rillinsville we saw a bird on top of a small power pole that while first driving by I thought was a crow based on the size, but at the last second we noticed it had a larger raven bill. I had Katrina back up so we could see the bird and it stayed on the post. Just as we turned off the car we heard the bird call at close range. It was fairly high pitched and what I am use to hearing for other Chihuahuan Raven. We then got our optics on the bird and quickly noticed it had a short bill, with nasal bristles extending over 3/4 of the bill. Then after about 50 seconds of watching the raven through our binoculars it flew and I immediately noticed a mostly rounded tail. Everything I saw and heard on the bird suggested Chihuahuan Raven and if I was in a location that both species were present I would have no problem calling it Chihuahuan. I know the mountains are way out of habitat for Chihuahuan Ravens, but this is one of the few spots that I could picture seeing a Chihuahuan Raven being if they went upslope. Also, this is not that far away from Boulder, which seems to have a few reported each fall and winter. About a mile past the raven we found a small flock of birds that included 2 Yellow-rumped Warblers, 1 Orange-crowned Warbler, 1 'Pink-sided' Dark-eyed Junco, and 1 Golden-crowned Kinglet. We then slowly drove about 2 miles on Lump Gulch Road, which I found usually can be quite productive if you can find just the flock, which we did. In the flock we happened upon the second best bird of the day, which was an adult female Pine Warbler. Also in the flock was a Cassin's Vireo, several Yellow-rumped Warblers, a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, and a White-breasted Nuthatch, along with a bunch of usual species. A quick stop at Thorn Lake produced a Brown Creeper on the drive in and 5 Ring-necked Ducks on the lake itself. We then decided to drive through Golden Gate Canyon State Park and ran into several flocks of birds. Not much of interest here with the bests birds seen was 1 Swainson's Thrush and 5 Red Crossbills. A drive on Apex Valley Road heading west a couple of miles produced several dozen birds, but the best were 2 Bushtits and 2 Western Bluebirds. As we were just getting to the west side of the private reservoir of Chase Gulch, we stopped to do look through the wet meadow when a juvenile Townsend's Warbler flew into the tree next to the car. As we got close to the reservoir we were able to find 1 Pied-billed Grebe and 2 Mallards. Going through Central City and Black Hawk we found a small flock of Rock Pigeons, but we were unsuccessful in looking for Eurasian Collared-Dove (1 of 2 Colorado counties I still need it in, the other being Hinsdale). On the way down the highway from Black Hawk to Golden we found our last bird in Gilpin County for the day, a Canyon Wren. Cole Wild Loveland
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