Yesterday was a truly gorgeous day for birding with my son & Mark Chavez, with some excellent birds found around El Paso, Fremont, and Pueblo Counties. In addition to the noteworthy species mentioned by Mark, and the more common suspects found in those areas, here are some additional observations from our day afield.
First, any day with 7 woodpecker species is an excellent day, especially this time of year and with those species mentioned by Mark! Several Juniper Titmice were easily found yesterday morning along the Hwy 115 corridor, from the Fremont-El Paso county line to Penrose. Although not rare or even uncommon in that area, these are always fun & friendly birds to find. A small group of Western Bluebirds and a large flock of Mountain Bluebirds were also seen in the same general area, as were a few Canyon Towhees and a Curve-billed Thrasher. The greenish coloring behind the eye of the Eurasian Wigeon being seen regularly at Centennial Park in Canon City raises the possibility/probability that it’s a Eurasian x American Wigeon hybrid. Just some food for thought here... A Rock Wren at Tunnel Drive in Canon City also seemed like a good winter sighting, although probably not unusual in that area. Finally, one of the coolest observations of the day was the high-speed pursuit of an unknown sparrow species by a pair of Shrikes at Valco Ponds near Pueblo Reservoir! Due to the very fast, irregular flight path of the birds, it was impossible to ID the sparrow, nor discern the necessary field marks to call the Shrikes either Northern or Loggerhead. However, I’ve never observed 2 Shrikes working in tandem like that to capture a bird, so it was really fun for us to see. The chase ended somewhere out of our viewing area, so we’re not sure of the outcome. As usual, my photos will be posted a bit later at the link below. Good Birding, Kirk Huffstater Castle Rock, CO http://www.flickr.com/photos/kirkh1 From: [email protected] Sent: Monday, January 07, 2013 12:06 AM To: COBIRDS Subject: [cobirds] Birding Pueblo and Canon City Today Kirk Huffstater, Kyle Huffstater, and I headed to Pueblo and Canon City for some birding in the great January weather. We started in Colorado Springs and got the Acorn Woodpecker in the birdy neighborhood near the Sacred Grounds Coffee Shop. We ended up running out of time at Pueblo Reservoir. When we arrived around 330pm the tires only had Ring-billed Gulls and a couple of Herring Gulls.We got there to late to see some of the goodies from the past week. We also missed out on the Pacific and Red-throated Loons. Below are some of the birds we had today before running out of sunlight. Acorn Woodpecker--Colorado Springs Red-naped Sapsucker--Turkey Creek Lewis's Woodpecker--Turkey Creek Eurasian Wigeon--Centennial Park Williamson's Sapsucker--Holy Cross Abbey Evening Grosbeaks--Fremont County Rufous-crowned Sparrow-Tunnel Drive Some of the following birds can been seen in the rare to uncommon gallery below: Mark Chavez Lakewood-Green Mtn http://jaeger29.smugmug.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. -- 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.
