COBirders, I visited Scott Rashid this morning in wintery Estes Park - his feeders were being guarded by hungry Blackbirds including 4 Yellow-headed - one of which he managed to trap and band. A bit later, a flock of 28 Common Redpoll flew in, but were flushed - presumably by a Cooper's Hawk that works the yard.
There was a good mix of birds around Lake Estes including: 1 Wilson's Phalarope 14 White-faced Ibis 4 Wilson's Snipe 1 Yellow-rumped Warbler missing its tail 1 Sage Thrasher 5 Greater Yellowlegs 2 Tree Swallows 4 California Gulls Raft of Franklin's Gulls Raft of Western/Clark's Grebes Out in Longmont on 119th & Oxford, I was lucky to find all three Longspurs. Difficult to estimate the number of birds as they are constantly flushed by traffic, but at one point I had 31 McCown's in a single group. There were dozens of Chestnut-collared and at least three Lapland in with hundreds of Horned Lark. Roaming the back roads, I would find pockets of American Robins, Killdeer, Western Meadowlark & White-crowned Sparrow. I also noticed single Savannah Sparrow & Vesper Sparrow. Of course, with such a concentration of birds, in came the raptors. Kestrels were seemingly everywhere. At least two Prairie Falcons were making strafing runs causing chaos... The scene is pretty spectacular - an inland version of a fall-out Longspur photos are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pgburke/ Good Birding, Peter Burke Boulder -- http://www.linkedin.com/pub/peter-burke/5/788/a62 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
