After a very predictable, lackluster list of 17 species yesterday, I had a decent set of 23 species today including male Red-naped Sapsucker in Austrian Pines just out on City Park 9 golf course midway along the south edge of the cemetery, Gray Catbird (FOY for me at Grandview) in a European Buckthorn along the ditch in the southeast corner, Yellow-rumped Warbler (3) in Northern Hackberry near the entrance to the Cemetery Shop area in the southeast corner, and a small group of 9 Sandhill Cranes overhead. Other interesting birds included 2 Great Horned Owls in the Champion Thornless Honeylocust in the middle of Section 8, Ruby-crowned Kinglet in a juniper in the north part of the cemetery, and a group of about 20 Chipping Sparrows in and under Northern Hackberry in the northern tip of Section E.
Red-breasted Nuthatches are busy caching conifer seeds, robins are voraciously gobbling buckthorns and juniper berries, and a few grackles are still rifling deciduous tree leaves hung up in the crowns of conifers. Brown Creepers appeared in the last week, as did a couple juncos and White-crowned Sparrows. Hummingbirds, empids and swallows have disappeared. The hackberry psyllids are hatching in hackberry in northern CO. Most of the hackberry "gnats" attracting birds right now are the blistergall psyllids, but the nipplegall relatives will soon emerge. Together large numbers of these two species swarming about the crowns and then settling into trunk bark for overwintering can be a real draw for migrating warblers, kinglets, sparrows, creepers, nuthatches, woodpeckers, etc. Steve Mlodinow reported that Eaton Cemetery, which boasts a robust population of hackberries, had a Nashville Warbler yesterday. Wherever you go in the next 2 weeks, if the place has hackberries with bumps and blotches on the leaves, they are worth checking. Dave Leatherman Fort Collins -- 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/DM5PR06MB2747E14BA8C0B7D5053FF12FC1C00%40DM5PR06MB2747.namprd06.prod.outlook.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
