Hello, Birders. Fifteen of us convened earlier this morning, Tuesday, August 12, for three-plus glorious hours of the rich sensory and psychological experience of being out at night. Where to start?
I know, let's start with astronomy. We fortunate to have with us Dan Durda, a professional astronomer and gifted interpreter for general audiences, and we enjoyed viewing of variable stars, double stars, gas nebulae, the galaxy in Andromeda, the planet Uranus, various constellations, several star clusters, stars with every manner of Arabic name, a near conjunction of Jupiter and Venus, an iridium flare, The Great Watermelon (how the moon looks late at night a day or so after full), and, oh, yes, meteors. The Perseids were, all things considered, rather humdrum. The Great Watermelon blew out all but the brightest meteors. Still, we saw several dozen. One induced a wonderful shriek from some of the participants. I love it when that happens. We learned cool stuff about asteroids, extrasolar planets, and what the moon's surface is made of. (Watermelon rind?) Non-avian animals. We heard coyotes and bull frogs, crickets and cicadas, a squeaky rodent, fish thrashing about, and maybe a red fox. A highlight was seeing a big foraging flock of bats, mainly big brown bats, but also at least one hoary bat. The bats were working the buggy airspace in the treetops that line Greenlee Reservoir. Meanwhile, cottontails were so thick we were practically kicking them out of the way. Nocturnal passerine migrants. The *Chipping Sparrow* flight was good. During the times when I wasn't gabbing, I heard them going over at a rate of 30-40 flight calls per hour, from our start time at 2:45 to the end of nautical dawn, about three hours later. Sharp-eared listeners like Topiltzin Martinez, Elena Klaver, and Mark "The Minnesota Mystic" Alt heard more than I did. (They have better ears, and they talk less.) We also heard a few *Lark Buntings,* a couple of *Wilson's Warblers,* and a few short, high, clipped notes that I think could have been *Brewer's Sparrows.* A *Lazigo Bunting* flew over during civil twilight. So things were definitely on the move, with just the slightest breeze out of the west-southwest. Other cool things flying around. At 3:58, we heard something amazing: a loudly trumpeting, high-flying *Western Grebe,* winging its way from northwest to southeast. It's unusual to even see a Western Grebe in sustained flight. Hearing one at night was awesome. We also got to hear a lot of calling from *Black-crowned Night-Herons *flying about. During astronomical dawn, the resident *Barn Swallows* were on the wing, twittering in the moonlit, doing whatever it is they do on summer nights. In the early 3am hour we heard a flight call that I think was likely that of a *Semipalmated Plover;* not positive of that ID. Oh, and a few *Killdeer.* Birds not flying around. We heard a few birds just sitting around: a couple of *American Robins* stirring at night roosts, *Mallards* quacking in the marsh, and a female *Great Horned Owl* who was singing a subdued, sort of whiny, nasal version of the typical series of hoot notes. Here's a recording: https://soundcloud.com/ted-floyd/great-horned-owl-boulder-county-aug-12 (Sorry, the owl's hooting was a bit muted, and there was some traffic along nearby Baseline Road.) Birds actually seen, during civil twilight. We actually saw (!) a few birds in the half hour of civil twilight that precedes sunrise. These included 4 *Wood Ducks,* a *Double-crested Cormorant,* a *Great Blue Heron,* a juvenile *Cooper's Hawk,* a family group of *Swainson's Hawks* (n=4), a *gull* and a *hummingbird* (sorry, still not enough light for ID), a couple of *House Wrens,* a *Gray Catbird,* a *Spotted Towhee,* and a *Lesser Goldfinch.* Here's the catbird: https://soundcloud.com/ted-floyd/gray-catbird-boulder-county-aug-12 This was an outing of Colorado Field Ornithologists (CFO), which brings you COBirds and a lot more. Learn more about CFO: http://cfobirds.org/ Thanks to everybody for coming out tonight. I had a wonderful time, and we'll do it again next year. And to think, we were already done and back in bed or at breakfast before the "Tuesday Birders" are even awake... :-) Ted Floyd Lafayette, Boulder County, Colorado -- 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/80e529ed-12b0-4e72-9a37-31c988e99f33%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
