Yesterday I enjoyed assemblage of birds on private property in the Canon City area including a pretty rare for this area White-throated Sparrow, and I believe a tan-striped form at that. A few hundred feet away was a Northern Shrike.
One large old cottonwood tree just a hundred yards from the sparrow hosted an unusually diverse group of birds--2 Eastern Bluebirds (feeding on insects), 2 Townsend's Solitaires (not common in this deciduous riparian area), 2 Downy Woodpeckers, 1 Northern Flicker, 1 Lewis' Woodpecker (also feeding on ? in tree), 1 White-breasted Nuthatch, 4 American Goldfinch and an unusually pugnacious possible hybrid Black X Eastern Phoebe. As large as the tree was, the phoebe was not interested in sharing the location. I observed it engage in hostile interactions with at least one of the bluebirds, both of the solitaires, the poor small nuthatch and a goldfinch. This is unusual behavior for a phoebe in my experience. At dusk I spotted a Harlan's Hawk perched in a tree on top of the bluff above the Arkansas River. So now that I knew the bird was still around town I went looking today for the Harlan's and found one perched several hundred feet away-it flew and I got a few photos as it flew past then I followed it until it disappeared on the prison property. I have uploaded photos of the phoebe and the White-throated Sparrow onto my Birds and Nature blog <http://BirdsAndNature.blogspot.com>. I will add photos of the Harlan's tomorrow. SeEtta Moss Canon City Blogging for Birds and Blooms magazine @ http://birdsandbloomsblog.com/author/seetta-moss/ Personal blog @ BirdsAndNature.blogspot.com<http://birdsandnature.blogspot.com/> -- 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 https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
