Reporting on birds you DON'T see is a lot harder than talking about the ones
you do see.
Douglas County: Castlewood Canyon State Park seems almost devoid of small birds
-- we've hiked several trails on the west side, several times in the last 3
weeks and seen almost none to no chickadees, nuthatches, creepers, scrub-jays,
and the like. The ponderosas have no cones, the douglasfirs appear to have shed
their seeds if not their cones, so these little guys can't find anything to eat
in the Park.
Jefferson County: We had the same experience on Genesee Mountain 4 weeks ago --
and also noticed a lack of conifer cones.
Jefferson County: Denver Audubon's Walk the Wetlands (south end of Chatfield
State Park) recorded 22 species on Sunday compared with 35 on last year's walk.
Individuals dropped too (if you exclude a circling flock of 65 Ring-billed
Gulls) from 213 to 130 birds. A lot of Sunday's birds came to the Nature Center
feeders. I don't know what the natural food situation is along the South
Platte, but bird diversity & numbers seem to have dropped there too.
Douglas County: At our feeders we see about the normal variety, but not as many
birds as last winter. I would expect woodsy birds to flock to the feeders if
they can't find natural food. Compared with last year in October, this year we
counted fewer W. Scrub-Jays, Spotted Towhees & juncos (3/4 as many of each),
the same number of chickadees, nuthatches, & woodpeckers. Last year (and for
several years before that) Blue Jays (which do not breed here) arrived in late
August and thronged us throughout the winter; we averaged 5 in October & 6 in
November. This year they didn't even show up until Oct. 1, and the paltry few
that have visited apparently left in late October.
What do other Cobirders NOT see on some of their regular patches?
Did the missing birds move out onto the plains or into the metro area, go
south, or simply disappear?
Arapahoe County: Karen Metz commented, "Western Scrub-Jayshave been moving to
the western edge of the plains. I saw one at thePlains Conservation Center on
Saturday (my first-ever siting of that species inmy 9 years of volunteering
there), and a nearby resident told me he’d notobserved that species until this
past week – and is seeing several."
Hugh Kingery
Franktown, CO
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