As Ira reported, the only warbler seen yesterday at the sacred Austrian Pine at
3005 Center Green Drive was a Northern Parula (appears to be a female, with
just a hint of orange on the chest). To the best of my knowledge in chatting
with the other birders present on and off Monday the 18th, it was seen around
11am and again at noon. It did not make a showing after that. Neither the
Bay-breasted nor the Pine Warblers were seen at this site on the 18th.
I did an extensive walk-about of the general neighborhood and there are
probably in excess of 75 big Austrian Pines in the nearby office park,
including the Residence Inn complex and other office buildings to the east and
north/northwest of the "hot" tree, and around buildings south of this area on
the south side of Valmont, pretty much all which have some degree of aphid
infestation. The easiest way to gauge aphid presence, at least on the kind of
warm days we've been having, is to note yellowjacket wasp activity (which have
been referred to as "bees" in one of the posts). The wasps are grazing on the
sticky, sugary "honeydew" excreted by the aphids and which make the needles of
aphid-infested trees "shimmer" in the sunlight, as if sprayed with water or a
clear glaze.
This is all to say that I hope folks continue to monitor/check this site, and
that such hunting not be restricted to the tree where the amazing warblers seen
to date have frequented. As eTed recently noted in one of his posts about a
bird reported as missing and then showing up later, when we think a bird is
gone, there are two other possibilities - it's still there and we missed it, or
its dead. Hopefully the recent warbler subjects of our adoration chose a
70-degreeish day in Colorado in the latter half of November to make progress
south, nothing more, nothing less.
In the general vicinity of the tree, the only birds I saw of note besides the
Northern Parula was a Ruby-crowned Kinglet to the nw (thicket w of the
buildings along the rr track), and a Yellow-rumped Warbler south of Valmont.
I understand Alex Brown has seen a Pine Warbler recently at the East Campus of
CU (s of 30th/Boulder). This was the site where 2 Pine Warblers and an eastern
race Palm Warbler overwintered in 1992-1993 in the pines, oaks, dumpsters, etc.
Just for old times' sake, I went down there, bought 20 minutes' worth of time
in the Visitor Parking lot (50 cents) and did a quick perusal. Didn't see
anything, but that probably means nothing, given the speed checking that many
pines in that amount of time requires.
Dave Leatherman
Fort Collins
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