This was a very interesting email and I have also noted the lack of some normal birds. What we do have every day for about a week now are Stellar's Jays at our feeders near the foothills in Fort Collins. Also today on Reservoir Ridge I saw a flock of about 6 Stellar's and this is really unusual. Can anyone comment on this? I also saw several American Tree sparrows. I have seen several (FOS) Scrub Jays in the foothills and at Soapstone. We do not have many juncos per normal but we do have a regular group of about 3 blue jays. Normally we have Scrub Jays at the feeders and I haven't seen any yet.
Libby Edwards Fort Collins Larimer County On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 3:56 PM, Hugh Kingery <[email protected]> wrote: > 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-Jays have been > moving to the western edge of the plains. I saw one at the Plains > Conservation Center on Saturday (my first-ever siting of that species in my > 9 years of volunteering there), and a nearby resident told me he’d not > observed that species until this past week – and is seeing several." > > > Hugh Kingery > Franktown, CO > > -- > 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 [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/8D0A891726A6F6F-D30-60DEE%40Webmail-m111.sysops.aol.com > . > 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 unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/CABwznzL%3DHrXG1ufK2AnRyLJXfmAwrLbzO8FDjhrT3KOTwDhhQw%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
