Nothing rare but a brief report on some local specialties and somewhat unusual birds I have found in the Canon City area. I haven't posted in awhile as I only returned less than 2 weeks ago from a 6 week stay in So Texas. The winds have been very gusty so it has not been the best of conditions to try to check on bird life. And though we have had better precipitation in the past several months the severe drought has left trees, shrubs and grasses with limited seeds, berries, nuts and shelter for birds so numbers of some species are still impacted.
Today was the first day with no big winds and less trouble with my knee so I hiked the Tunnel Drive area in search of *Rufous-crowned Sparrows*. I didn't find any in the area at the bottom and had to hike over a half mile to locate them. I spotted at least 2, maybe 3, and they were as almost always in this area in association with* Canyon Towhees*. I did get a couple of reasonable photos that show the field marks which I have uploaded to my Birds and Nature blog <http://birdsandnature.blogspot.com/>. I also heard then saw 2 *Rock Wrens*, one near the parking area at the bottom and one up the trail about a half mile. Though fairly rare in other parts of Colorado in winter this species is regular in this location. I did get a short video clip of one of them singing but won't have time to process it and upload to my blog until tomorrow. *Snow Geese* are fairly uncommon in this area but I did find 2 of them on Friday with several hundred Canada Geese in the agricultural fields on MacKenzie Ave. I saw 14 *Greater White-fronted Geese* in those same ag fields on MacKenzie a week ago but have not refound them there or at other locations they are usually seen (suspect they are going over to the fields on the DOC east Canon Complex that is not accessible or visible from public areas). I have 2 *Lesser Goldfinch* coming to my feeders and there seem to be more of these around the front range this winter. I also have 1, sometimes 2, *White-winged Doves *coming to my feeders (and a Sharp-shinned Hawk this morning that was snitched off by my Mountain Chickadees) There seem to be an unusually high number of *Common Goldeneye* on ponds and along the Arkansas River in this area right now. There are better numbers of *Bald Eagles* around this year than last year--I have seen an immature and an adult along the river here plus an adult near Cotopaxi west of Canon City. (Those who enjoy unusual hawks may want to scroll down on my blog page to see good photos of the Hook-billed kites, Zone-tailed Hawks, Gray Hawk I found plus several hawks I photographed during a banding I attended by Bill Clark who has co-authored raptor guides-running from Jan 12-30). SeEtta Moss Canon City http://BirdsAndNature.blogspot.comhttp://birdsandnature.blogspot.com/ -- 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/CAAUvcko3xcLJV%3DREn%2BU5tz4boc%3Dp8t7SVt-zM8sBS%2BLCMizzPg%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
