Continuing our nice April visit to Colorado, I took my regular early morning walk today, a 2.4 mile loop from our vacation home on the west end of Estes Park down to buy the daily newspaper and back. We have a lovely snowy landscape this beautiful Friday morning up here. It was interesting to see various birds in the snow including gaudy male "Mytle" Warblers in snow-covered bushes. My biggest surprise came as I walked between Smokin' Dave's BBQ and Taphouse and the adjacent Trout Haven. I always check around behind these two establishments for interesting birds. Around Smokin' Dave's dumpster, I had the usual scavengers, then out of a small bush by the dumpster, a Brown Thrasher popped up and gave me a nice view before ducking into the bush. I had to stalk it for about 15 minutes before it flew up into an aspen where I could get decent photos for my eBird checklist. Checking eBird when I returned to the house, I was very surprised to find so few other Brown Thrasher sightings this month, all well and east and south of Larimer County. There were also other sightings in eBird in February and March in Denver County, the closest to where I am. Even looking at other years in eBird, this is the only April thrasher up here and only a handful east of here on the plains. So it is amazing that this bird made it up here already!
Yesterday on the same morning walk I found a Lincoln's Sparrow in the piece of Rocky Mountain National Park land across Mary's Lake Road from "The Other Side." This was the first one in eBird up here this season, though we ran into Scott Rashid at Lake Estes two days ago, and he reported finding Lincoln's Sparrow there. Here again, this is almost a week earlier than historical reports in eBird for this species in the Estes Park area, Always fun to see these first of season birds, and a real treat to have the very early Brown Thrasher to report. My eBird checklist with photos of the thrasher can be viewed at http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S36144358 Jim Nelson Bethesda, Maryland -- 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/4397740.878670.1492796588874.JavaMail.root%40vznit170128.mailsrvcs.net. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
